Department of Environmental Sciences, Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Jožef Stefan International Postgraduate School, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2024 May;31(24):35800-35810. doi: 10.1007/s11356-024-33582-6. Epub 2024 May 14.
The number of atmospheric mercury (Hg) monitoring stations is growing globally. However, there are still many regions and locations where Hg monitoring is limited or non-existent. Expansion of the atmospheric Hg monitoring network could be facilitated by the use of cost-effective monitoring methods. As such, biomonitoring and passive monitoring offer a unique alternative to well-established monitoring by active measurements, since they do not require a power supply and require minimal workload to operate. The use of biomonitoring (lichens and mosses) and passive air samplers (PASs) (various designs with synthetic materials) has been reported in the literature, and comparisons with active measurement methods have also been made. However, these studies compared either biomonitoring or PASs (not both) to only one type of active measurement. In our work, we used transplanted (7 sampling sites) and in situ lichens (8 sampling sites) for biomonitoring, two PASs from different producers (3 sampling sites), and two different active measurement types (continuous and discontinuous active measurements, 1 and 8 sampling sites, respectively) to evaluate their effectiveness as monitoring methods. In the 9-month sampling campaign, 3 sampling locations with different characteristics (unpolluted, vicinity of a cement plant, and vicinity of a former Hg mine) were used. The results obtained with lichens and PASs clearly distinguished between sampling locations with different Hg concentrations; using both PASs and lichens together increased the confidence of our observations. The present work shows that biomonitoring and passive sampling can be effectively used to identify areas with elevated atmospheric Hg concentrations. The same can be said for discontinuous active measurements; however, the discrepancy between atmospheric Hg concentrations derived from PASs and discontinuous active measurements should be further investigated in the future.
全球范围内用于监测大气汞（Hg）的监测站数量正在不断增加。然而，仍有许多地区和位置的 Hg 监测受到限制或不存在。通过使用具有成本效益的监测方法，可以促进大气 Hg 监测网络的扩展。因此，生物监测和被动监测为通过主动测量建立的成熟监测方法提供了独特的替代方案，因为它们不需要电源，并且操作所需的工作量最小。文献中已经报道了生物监测（地衣和苔藓）和被动空气采样器（PAS）（具有合成材料的各种设计）的使用，并与主动测量方法进行了比较。然而，这些研究将生物监测或 PAS（而不是两者）与仅一种类型的主动测量进行了比较。在我们的工作中，我们使用了移植（7 个采样点）和原位地衣（8 个采样点）进行生物监测、来自不同生产商的两个 PAS（3 个采样点）以及两种不同的主动测量类型（连续和不连续主动测量，分别有 1 和 8 个采样点），以评估它们作为监测方法的有效性。在为期 9 个月的采样活动中，使用了具有不同特征的 3 个采样点（无污染区、水泥厂附近和前汞矿区附近）。地衣和 PAS 获得的结果清楚地区分了 Hg 浓度不同的采样点；同时使用 PAS 和地衣增加了我们观察结果的可信度。本工作表明，生物监测和被动采样可有效用于识别大气 Hg 浓度升高的区域。不连续主动测量也是如此；然而，未来应进一步研究从 PAS 和不连续主动测量得出的大气 Hg 浓度之间的差异。
