Soil's Hidden Power: The Stable Soil Organic Carbon Pool Controls the Burden of Persistent Organic Pollutants in Background Soils.

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) tend to accumulate in cold regions by cold condensation and global distillation. Soil organic matter is the main storage compartment for POPs in terrestrial ecosystems due to deposition and repeated air-surface exchange processes. Here, physicochemical properties...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental Science & Technology
Main Authors: Jiang, Lu, Lv, Jitao, Jones, Kevin C, Yu, Shiyang, Wang, Yawei, Gao, Yan, Wu, Jing, Luo, Lun, Shi, Jianbo, Li, Yingming, Yang, Ruiqiang, Fu, Jianjie, Bu, Duo, Zhang, Qinghua, Jiang, Guibin
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Chemical Society 2024
Subjects:
Antarctic and Arctic regions
Tibetan Plateau
background soil burden
mineral-associated organic matter
persistent organic pollutants
soil organic matter
Arctic
Antarctic
Antarc*
Climate change
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.4c00028
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38696308
Description
Summary:Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) tend to accumulate in cold regions by cold condensation and global distillation. Soil organic matter is the main storage compartment for POPs in terrestrial ecosystems due to deposition and repeated air-surface exchange processes. Here, physicochemical properties and environmental factors were investigated for their role in influencing POPs accumulation in soils of the Tibetan Plateau and Antarctic and Arctic regions. The results showed that the soil burden of most POPs was closely coupled to stable mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC). Combining the proportion of MAOC and physicochemical properties can explain much of the soil distribution characteristics of the POPs. The background levels of POPs were estimated in conjunction with the global soil database. It led to the proposition that the stable soil carbon pools are key controlling factors affecting the ultimate global distribution of POPs, so that the dynamic cycling of soil carbon acts to counteract the cold-trapping effects. In the future, soil carbon pool composition should be fully considered in a multimedia environmental model of POPs, and the risk of secondary release of POPs in soils under conditions such as climate change can be further assessed with soil organic carbon models.

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