Impact of land-use on PAH transfer in sub-surface water as recorded by CaCO

In densely populated urban areas, the pressure on water resources is considerable and will tend to intensify over the next decades. Preserving water resources therefore seems fundamental, but many questions remain as to the transfer of contaminants to subsurface waters in these largely sealed areas. Because of their toxicity and persistence in the environment, this work focused on the study of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), ubiquitous pollutants mainly produced by human activities. To better understand the main factors leading to the retention or transport of these pollutants in urban environments, vertical transects, from the surface to several meters down, were established on three study sites in or near Paris (France), selected according to an urbanization gradient. Soil samples collected at the surface and urban secondary carbonate deposits (USCD), similar to cave speleothems, sampled underground in quarries and aqueducts were analyzed. As the hydrophobic properties of PAHs favor their sorption onto organic matter, the latter was also studied using organic carbon analysis and UV fluorescence spectroscopy. The USCD located closest to the urbanized surface contained high concentrations of PAHs (76.8 ± 5.3 ng.g

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Declaration of Competing Interest ☒ The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. ☐ The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: