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Atmospheric Pollutants and Its Transport Mechanisms in Soil Along the Himalayas, Tibetan Plateau, and Its Surroundings: A Brief Note

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Xenobiotics in the Soil Environment

Part of the book series: Soil Biology ((SOILBIOL,volume 49))

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Abstract

The Himalayas, Tibetan Plateau, and its surroundings (HTPs) have long been identified to be critical in regulating the Asian monsoon climate and hydrological cycle. Moreover, the transport of pollutants from highly urbanized areas could be a serious threat to the soil quality in the pristine regions of the HTP regions. This work focuses on the study of the effect of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as organic pollutants and major ions and trace elements as inorganic pollutants in the HTPs. These pollutants get deposited in the Himalayan soils due to cold climatic conditions and atmospheric circulation mechanisms. Semi-volatile organic pollutants such as organ chlorine pesticides (OCPs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), CPs, and toxic trace metals can be transported from the densely populated and intensely agricultural activities via monsoon and then cold-trapped by the mountain soil of the HTP region. The OCP concentrations increase with increasing altitude, but ionic and elemental concentrations decrease with increasing altitude in the HTP and its surroundings. Organic and inorganic pollutants in air could be deposited into the surface of soil which further leads to health hazard. The studies revealed that cold temp, low Ph, and meteorological factors such as rainfall and wind patterns of mountain favor the deposition of organic pollutants (PAH, OCP, PCB) in soil.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the CAS President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI) for Visiting Scientist and postdoctoral researcher (Grant Nos. 2016VEB013 and 2016PE007). The authors would like to thank the editors for their suggestions to improve this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China

    Dambaru Ballab Kattel & Tandong Yao

  2. Department of Meteorology, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, CIIT, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Dambaru Ballab Kattel, Kalim Ullah & Muhammad Zaffar Hashmi

  3. State Key Laboratory of Cryospheric Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Lekhendra Tripathee

  4. Truman Graduate School of Public Affair, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

    Ashutosh Mohanty

  5. CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Beijing, China

    Tandong Yao

Authors
  1. Dambaru Ballab Kattel
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  2. Kalim Ullah
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  3. Muhammad Zaffar Hashmi
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  4. Lekhendra Tripathee
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  5. Ashutosh Mohanty
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  6. Tandong Yao
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dambaru Ballab Kattel .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Meteorology, COMSATS Inst. of Information Technology Department of Meteorology, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Muhammad Zaffar Hashmi

  2. Amity Inst of Microbial Technology, Amity University Uttar Pradesh Amity Inst of Microbial Technology, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Vivek Kumar

  3. Amity Inst of Microbial Technology, Amity University Uttar Pradesh Amity Inst of Microbial Technology, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Ajit Varma

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Kattel, D.B., Ullah, K., Hashmi, M.Z., Tripathee, L., Mohanty, A., Yao, T. (2017). Atmospheric Pollutants and Its Transport Mechanisms in Soil Along the Himalayas, Tibetan Plateau, and Its Surroundings: A Brief Note. In: Hashmi, M., Kumar, V., Varma, A. (eds) Xenobiotics in the Soil Environment. Soil Biology, vol 49. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47744-2_2

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