Point source identification using a simple permutation test: a case study of elevated PCDD/F levels in ambient air and soil and their relation to the distance to a local municipal solid waste incinerator |
| |
| Authors: | Chu-Chih Chen Kuen-Yuh Wu Guo-Ping Chang-Chien |
| |
| Institution: | (1) Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Institute of Population Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Zhunan, Taiwan;(2) Institute of Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene, School of Public Health, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan;(3) Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Cheng-Shiu University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan |
| |
| Abstract: | A point source for environmental pollution may be identified by the spatial association of samples collected in the vicinity
of the emission source. In this study, we used a simple permutation test to explore the spatial correlations between the ambient
air and soil polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin/dibenzofuran (PCDD/F) congener profile concentrations and their distances to a municipal solid waste incinerator (MSWI)
in northern Taiwan. Kendall’s τ was applied for the correlation between the PCDD/F concentrations of a total of 9 airborne and 12 soil sampling sites and
their distances to the incinerator. The results showed that the correlation was highly negatively associated for soil PCDD/Fs
(τ = −0.515, p-value = 0.011) and was marginal for airborne PCDD/Fs (τ = −0.667, p-value = 0.055), conditional on the seasonal wind attributions. For the 17 individual congener profiles, most of the air and
soil samples had a negative association, with 7 and 10 reaching statistical significance (p-value < 0.05) or borderline significance (0.05 < p-value < 0.10), respectively. The permutation test provides a simple and robust statistical method for the identification
of a potential pollution source from a limited sample size. Our analytical results show that dioxin emissions from the investigated
MSWI had a definite environmental impact on the surrounding area. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录！ |
|
