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Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls in urban and semi-urban soils of Havana, Cuba

  • Soils, Sec 3 • Remediation and Management of Contaminated or Degraded Lands • Research Article
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in Havana were quantified and analyzed in relation to possible emission sources to assess metropolitan soil contaminations in a highly dynamic, urban environment. The results of this study will serve Cuban legislators as a basis to develop environmental quality standards for organic pollutants in soils.

Materials and methods

Possible emission sources as, e.g., the vicinity to roads or industrial plants and the influence of the land use were related to the organic contaminants concentrations. Therefore, 28 topsoils in the Havana urban and semi-urban area were sampled at agricultural (n = 12), organoponic (urban gardens in the capital, n = 8), public park (n = 7), and remediation (on-site bioremediation of an oil refinery, n = 1) sites. Their PAH and PCB concentrations were measured with gas chromatography mass spectroscopy and the total organic carbon (TOC) and black carbon (BC) concentrations with the chemo-thermal oxidation.

Results and discussion

The sum of the 16 PAH concentrations ranged from 0.04 mg/kg in agricultural and organoponic soils to up to 72 mg/kg in a public park at about 1.5 km distance from an oil refinery. The lowest sum of the seven PCB congener concentrations was also measured in organoponic soils (0.002 mg/kg) and the highest in an arable patch of land between the rail roads and a main road (0.1 mg/kg). Both, PAH as well as PCB soil concentrations in Havana were almost up to two orders of magnitudes higher compared to a soil monitoring in the neighboring province of Mayabeque, but overall in the typical range of urban soils reported by other studies. The pollutants showed no relationship between TOC and BC except for PAHs with BC. For PAHs, combustion was the main source.

Conclusions

A comparison of the pollutant concentrations with regulatory guidance values (RGV) of other countries revealed PCB concentrations in Havana soils far below these RGV. In contrast, some concentrations of benzo[a]pyrene, the most carcinogenic PAH, in agricultural and park soils in Havana exceeded some RGV. Thus, some public parks pose a risk according to the Canadian quality guidelines when people have direct contact with these soils but not if they were consuming products thereof.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Swiss Embassy, and Swiss Cooperation Office in Havana for their support as well as Peter Schwab from the NABO for his sharing of experience and his help.

Funding

This work is part of the project “Establishing a soil monitoring network to assess the environmental exposure to PAHs and PCBs in the province of Havana, Cuba (Soil-Q),” within the Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development (r4d programme) financially supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro Nacional de Sanidad Agropecuaria (CENSA), Apartado 10, CP 32700, San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque, Cuba

    Dayana Sosa, Roberto Faure, Osvaldo Fonseca & Arturo Escobar

  2. Agroscope, Environmental Analytics, Reckenholzstrasse 191, 8046, Zurich, Switzerland

    Isabel Hilber, Nora Bartolomé & Thomas D. Bucheli

  3. Department of Environmental Systems Sciences, ETH Zurich, Universitätstrasse 16, 8092, Zurich, Switzerland

    Nora Bartolomé

  4. Swiss Soil Monitoring Network NABO, Agroscope, Reckenholzstrasse 191, 8046, Zurich, Switzerland

    Armin Keller

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  1. Dayana Sosa
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  2. Isabel Hilber
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  3. Roberto Faure
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  5. Osvaldo Fonseca
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Correspondence to Thomas D. Bucheli or Arturo Escobar.

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Sosa, D., Hilber, I., Faure, R. et al. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls in urban and semi-urban soils of Havana, Cuba. J Soils Sediments 19, 1328–1341 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-018-2137-6

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