Precipitation chemistry over urban, rural and high altitude Himalayan stations in eastern India
2016
Roy, Arindam | Chatterjee, Abhijit | Tiwari, Suresh | Sarakāra, Cirantana | Das, Sanat Kumar | Ghosh, S. K. (Sanjay Kumar) | Raha, Sibaji
A study of precipitation (rainwater) chemistry during the two consecutive summer monsoon seasons of 2013 and 2014 at a high altitude station (2200m asl) at eastern Himalaya region (Darjeeling); a typical metropolitan urban location (Kolkata), and a rural environment near the Bay of Bengal (Falta) was conducted. The volume-weighted mean (VWM) concentration shows that total ionic composition was maximum over Kolkata (391μeql⁻¹) followed by Falta (204μeql⁻¹) and Darjeeling (64μeql⁻¹). 85% rain samples were alkaline over Kolkata, whereas, 55 and 65% samples were acidic over Falta and Darjeeling respectively. Ca²⁺ was the most potential species to completely neutralize the acidity over Kolkata, whereas, NH4⁺ was the potential species to partially neutralize the acidity over Falta and Darjeeling. The deposition fluxes of anthropogenic and dust species over Kolkata was remarkably higher than Falta and Darjeeling. Anthropogenic and dust chemical species in rainwater were found to be dominant over Kolkata and Falta when the air masses passes from the polluted continental region. Rainwater acidity over Darjeeling was highest when air masses arrived from the Arabian Sea compared to air masses from the Bay of Bengal. Positive matrix factorization model was used for the source apportionment of the ionic species scavenged by rain. Comparable contributions of marine, dust, and anthropogenic sources were identified as major source over Kolkata. The major contributions were identified from marine and fossil fuel burning over Falta, whereas, marine, biomass/coal burning, ammonia from agricultural activities and domestic wastes were identified as the major sources over Darjeeling.
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