Gawel James E, Hemond Harold F
Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Program, University of Washington-Tacoma, 1900 Commerce St., Campus Box 358436, Tacoma, WA 98402, USA.
Environ Pollut. 2004 Sep;131(1):125-35. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2004.01.012.
Characterizing the spatial extent of groundwater metal contamination traditionally requires installing sampling wells, an expensive and time-consuming process in urban areas. Moreover, extrapolating biotic effects from metal concentrations alone is problematic, making ecological risk assessment difficult. Our study is the first to examine the use of phytochelatin measurements in tree leaves for delimiting biological metal stress in shallow, metal-contaminated groundwater systems. Three tree species (Rhamnus frangula, Acer platanoides, and Betula populifolia) growing above the shallow groundwater aquifer of the Aberjona River watershed in Woburn, Massachusetts, display a pattern of phytochelatin production consistent with known sources of metal contamination and groundwater flow direction near the Industri-Plex Superfund site. Results also suggest the existence of a second area of contaminated groundwater and elevated metal stress near the Wells G&H Superfund site downstream, in agreement with a recent EPA ecological risk assessment. Possible contamination pathways at this site are discussed.
传统上，确定地下水金属污染的空间范围需要安装采样井，这在城市地区是一个昂贵且耗时的过程。此外，仅根据金属浓度推断生物效应存在问题，这使得生态风险评估变得困难。我们的研究首次探讨了利用树叶中的植物螯合肽测量来界定浅层金属污染地下水系统中的生物金属胁迫。生长在马萨诸塞州沃本阿伯乔纳河流域浅层地下含水层之上的三种树种（欧洲鼠李、挪威槭和纸皮桦），其植物螯合肽的产生模式与已知的金属污染源以及工业综合超级基金场地附近的地下水流向一致。结果还表明，在下游的G&H井超级基金场地附近存在第二个受污染的地下水区域和更高的金属胁迫，这与美国环境保护局最近的生态风险评估结果一致。本文讨论了该场地可能的污染途径。
