Abstract
Background, aim and scope
In an international project named MONARPOP (Monitoring Network in the Alpine Region for Persistent and other Organic Pollutants), selected chemicals in different environmental media were analysed in the years 2004 and 2005. Seventeen pesticides were chosen and analysed in humus and mineral soil in the German Alps. The samples were taken at different altitudes.
Materials and methods
In such a rather complex environmental datasets, it is often necessary to compare different sets of criteria and their influence on rankings. In the similarity analysis which is part of the theory of the Hasse diagram technique, we intend to calculate the similarity of different rankings. Furthermore, we perform a so-called dominance-dominance/dominance-separability method, followed by a sensitivity analysis, both subroutines in the newly developed PyHasse programme in order to find out if the concentration of the chemicals can be related to the altitudes at which the samples were taken.
Results and discussion
It can be demonstrated that the altitude has a considerable influence on the concentration of some organic chemicals in humus: The concentrations of some chemicals increase with the altitude. This increase shows certain irregularities for which several explication attempts including possible effects of atmospheric stratification phenomena in valleys have been made.
Conclusion
These results should be complemented in further studies with MONARPOP monitoring data from other Alpine countries, e.g. Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Slovenia.
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Acknowledgement
MONARPOP is funded by the EU Interreg III B Alpine Space Programme and by different participating national and regional partners. The investigations performed in the German Alps have been financed by the Free State of Bavaria, represented by the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Public Health. We would like to thank our colleagues from the MONARPOP partner “Austrian Umweltbundesamt” for the support in sampling design, humus sample preparation and supervision of distribution logistics for all sites and organisation and quality management of sample and data exchange.
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Voigt, K., Brüggemann, R., Kirchner, M. et al. Influence of altitude concerning the contamination of humus soils in the German Alps: a data evaluation approach using PyHasse. Environ Sci Pollut Res 17, 429–440 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-009-0244-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-009-0244-z