Gridded inventories of historical usage for selected organochlorine pesticides in Heilongjiang River Basin, China.

The use of technical HCH (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6-hexachlorocyclohexane), DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and lindane in Heilongjiang River Basin (HRB) of China was studied. Between 1952 and 1984 the total usage in the HRB was 108900 t for technical HCH, and 4900 t for DDT, respectively, and the use of DDT due to dicofol application in the HRB was 220 t from 1984 to 2003. The usage of lindane in HRB was 109 t from 1991 to 2000. The results show that the highest technical HCH use (41800 t) in HRB was on maize, accounting for 38.3% of the total usage on all crops, followed by the use on wheat (28000 t, 25.7%) and on soybean (26600 t, 24.4%). The highest DDT use (2300 t) was on soybean, accounting for 46.8% of the total usage on all crops, followed by the use on maize (1500 t, 31.3%) and on sorghum (600 t, 13.2%). The major use of lindane was mainly on wheat. Gridded usage inventories of these three OCPs (organochlorine pesticides), in HRB with a 1/6 degrees latitude by 1/4 degrees longitude resolution have been created by using different gridded cropland as surrogates. Some soil samples have also been collected in HRB. Data of usage and soil concentrations of sigma HCH in HRB match quite well to those in Shanghai region, and much higher soil concentration of sigma DDT in Shanghai region could be due to much heavier dicofol use in this region.