Chapter 5 Pollution of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in China

Abstract

Abstract With its rapid economic growth, China is encountering serious environmental problems. As the result of a sharp increase in energy consumption in the past 20 years, large quantities of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were released into the environment. PAH concentrations in the atmosphere, water, and soil were increasing year by year. Because the Chinese government had financed many research programmes on the investigation of environmental pollution with PAHs, basic understanding of the pollution patterns and pollution sources of PAHs in China was achieved. In this paper, PAH pollution in the atmosphere, water and sediment, and soil and plants was reviewed. Comparisons of literature values of PAHs in China and those of western countries show that PAH pollution in China is more serious than in other countries. PAHs concentrations in atmosphere, water, sediment and soil in China were in the range of 60–2900 ng m −3 , 1–98 μg l −1 , and 0.005–182 μg g −1 , respectively. The identification of sources of PAHs in different environmental media revealed that atmospheric PAHs come from primarily coal combustion and petrogenic sources; and water and soil PAH pollution from atmospheric deposition, industrial wastewater discharge, and wastewater irrigation. The environmental pollution of PAHs in water and soil also caused the bioaccumulation of PAHs in fish, bivalves, vegetables and agriculture plants. The human health risks of PAH pollution in China need to be more extensively investigated in the future.