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Fingerprinting aliphatic hydrocarbon pollutants over agricultural lands surrounding Tehran oil refinery

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Abstract

The analysis of aliphatic hydrocarbons, which are composed of n-alkanes as well as branched and cyclic alkanes, can be used to distinguish between the sources of hydrocarbon contamination. In this study, the concentration of aliphatic hydrocarbons, soil pH, and organic matter in agricultural soils located south of Tehran were monitored. Eighty-three soil samples were taken from two depth ranges of 0–30 and 30–60 cm. The results showed that aliphatic compounds ranged from 0.22–68.11 mg kg−1 at the top to 0.33–53.18 mg kg−1 at subsoil. The amount of hydrocarbons increases from the northern parts toward the south, and hydrocarbon pollutants originated from both petroleum and non-petroleum sources. Higher concentrations of aliphatic compounds in the southern parts indicated that, aside from the practice of irrigating with untreated wastewater, leakage from oil refinery storage tanks possibly contributed to soil pollution. The results also showed that several sources have polluted the agricultural soils. It is necessary to develop a new local pollution criterion as a diagnostic index that includes not only hydrocarbons but also other parameters such as heavy metal content in both soil and untreated wastewater, surface runoff, and other irrigation water resources to determine the exact origin of pollution.

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  1. Inverse distance weighting

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Tehran Regional Water Company. The authors acknowledge Dr. Salemi for help with GC and Dr. Mirbagheri for GIS mapping.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Pollutants Research, Environmental Sciences Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Tehran, 1983963113, Iran

    Javad Bayat & Seyed Hossein Hashemi

  2. Department of Agroecology, Environmental Sciences Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Tehran, 1983963113, Iran

    Korros Khoshbakht & Reza Deihimfard

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  1. Javad Bayat
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Correspondence to Seyed Hossein Hashemi.

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Bayat, J., Hashemi, S.H., Khoshbakht, K. et al. Fingerprinting aliphatic hydrocarbon pollutants over agricultural lands surrounding Tehran oil refinery. Environ Monit Assess 188, 612 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-016-5614-7

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