Trace organic contaminants in urban runoff: Associations with urban land-use

Abstract

Urban development has led to an increase in urban runoff, accompanied with a decrease in water quality during rain events. One of the major causes of the decrease in water quality is the presence of trace organic contaminants in urban runoff. However, little is known about the sources of organic contaminants in urban runoff, especially related to land-use and temporal trends in those associated land uses. The objective of this study was to assess the occurrence and concentration trends of organic contaminants for a high-density residential site and commercial strip site in Madison, WI. Flow-weighted samples of urban stormwater runoff, collected with an auto-sampler, were composited and analyzed, producing mean organic contaminants concentrations for each storm event. The contaminants, which include pesticides, flame retardants, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, corrosion inhibitors, among others, were extracted and analyzed by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. There were 30 organic contaminants that had greater than 50% detections in at least one of the sites, and those organic contaminants did provide information on similarities and differences of organic contaminants in urban runoff derived from different land uses. The sum of the total measured pesticides showed no significant difference between sites; this was likely due to the considerable green space and associated pesticide use in both sites. However, there were higher total concentrations of organophosphate flame retardants and corrosion inhibitors in the residential site. The reason for this is unknown and will require follow-up studies; however, several hypotheses are presented. Conversely, there were higher total concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the commercial site; this is most likely due to higher vehicle traffic in the commercial site. These data show that land-use may be important in determining the composition and concentrations of trace organic contaminants in urban stormwater runoff.