Studies of Spatial Variabilities of Airborne Metals Across Four Different Land-Use Types

The concentrations of seven metals (Fe, Pb, Mn, Ni, Cd, Cu, and Cr) associated with the total suspended particles (TSPs) were analyzed regularly from the four sampling sites of different land-use types within the boundary of Won Ju city, Korea during1991 through 1995. The mean concentration data for the four sitesselected to represent grassland, residential, commercial, and industrial areas fell in a relatively broad range of: 1440–2240 (Fe), 88–326 (Pb), 2–4 (Cd), 8–21 (Cr),194–469 (Cu), 32–95 (Mn), and 15–26 (Ni) ng m-3. The data, when compared across the different study sites, generally exhibited systematic trends in accordance withthe site-selection scheme; most metals exhibited increase in their concentration levels across grassland through industrial site. Examinations of data also indicated the possibility that spatial factors play complicated roles on both long- and short-term distribution of metals. From all four sites studied, severalmetals (e.g., Fe, Pb, Mn, Ni, and Cd) consistently showed theirseasonal trends characteristic of high winter/spring values. In addition, the analysis of long-term distribution trendsindicated that the concentrations of many metals droppedsteadily at four sites (e.g., Fe, Pb, and Mn). When these metaldata were compared among different sites (land-use types), significant correlations were seen frequently for such metals asFe, Pb, Cd, and Cr. Investigations of inter-metal relationshipsindicated that strong correlations were more abundant from such metal pairs as Fe-Pb, Pb-Mn, and Mn-Fe. In addition, the cases for such strong correlations were seen more abundantly from grassland (and residential) than industrial (and commercial) site. Factor analysis was also conducted to distinguish sourceprocesses affecting metal distributions in the study area. Results of this analysis suggest that the metal distributions ofthe individual sites may be affected most significantly by distinctive source processes of their own.