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Engineering >> 2023, Volume 21, Issue 2 doi: 10.1016/j.eng.2021.11.023

Soil PAH Concentrations Decrease in China in response to the Adjustment of the Energy Structure During the Past Two Decades

a Key Laboratory of Water and Sediment Sciences of Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
b Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
c Key Laboratory for City Cluster Environmental Safety and Green Development of the Ministry of Education, Institute of Environmental and Ecological Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China

These authors contributed equally to this study.

Received: 2021-05-13 Revised: 2021-11-07 Accepted: 2021-11-15 Available online: 2022-02-26

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Abstract

China has made great efforts to fight environmental contamination along with rapid development and industrialization over the past few decades. However, the effects of these nationwide measures, such as energy restructuring, on pollutant residuals in soil have not been well quantified. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) pollution is a major concern around the world, and PAH emissions are associated with the energy structure. Therefore, we speculated that the adjustment of the energy structure in China may reduce the content of PAHs in soil. To test this hypothesis, we measured the concentrations of sixteen US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) priority PAH compounds (Σ16PAHs) at 54 soil sampling sites in Beijing in 2008 and 2019 and compiled nationwide data for 1704 soil sampling sites in the past two decades. The results showed that the Σ16PAH concentrations descended along the urban–suburban–rural–background gradient, and they first increased with increasing gross regional production (GRP) and plateaued when the GRP reached a certain level. The average Σ16PAH concentrations showed a decreasing trend across China over the past 20 years, and they decreased significantly from 22.7 μg·g−1 total organic carbon (TOC) in 2008 to 10.0 μg·g−1 TOC in 2019 in Beijing. The source identification analyses inferred that the decreasing trend of soil PAHs was due to the declines in the consumption of coal, coke, and some oils and the rising consumption of clean energy, such as electricity and natural gas, in China. This study demonstrates the important role of adjusting the energy structure in decreasing soil PAH concentrations and improving soil environmental quality.

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