Monitoring of heavy metal concentrations in home outdoor air using moss bags
2011
Rivera, Marcela | Zechmeister, Harald | Medina-Ramón, Mercedes | Basagaña, Xavier | Foraster, Maria | Bouso, Laura | Moreno, Teresa | Solanas, Pascual | Ramos, Rafael | Köllensperger, Gunda | Deltell, Alexandre | Vizcaya, David | Künzli, Nino
One monitoring station is insufficient to characterize the high spatial variation of traffic-related heavy metals within cities. We tested moss bags (Hylocomium splendens), deployed in a dense network, for the monitoring of metals in outdoor air and characterized metals’ long-term spatial distribution and its determinants in Girona, Spain. Mosses were exposed outside 23 homes for two months; NO₂ was monitored for comparison. Metals were not highly correlated with NO₂ and showed higher spatial variation than NO₂. Regression models explained 61–85% of Cu, Cr, Mo, Pb, Sb, Sn, and Zn and 72% of NO₂ variability. Metals were strongly associated with the number of bus lines in the nearest street. Heavy metals are an alternative traffic-marker to NO₂ given their toxicological relevance, stronger association with local traffic and higher spatial variability. Monitoring heavy metals with mosses is appealing, particularly for long-term exposure assessment, as mosses can remain on site many months without maintenance.
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