DETECTION AND DETERMINATION LIMITS OF PRIORITY ORGANIC POLLUTANTS IN SOIL

At present, the situation regarding data on concentration patterns in soils of areas with background contaminations are insufficient. For so il protection these data are essential for deriving reference values. Therefore the article presents and interprets detection and determinat ion limits for a selection of priority organic pollutants in soils. Ba sed on these results determination limits for the determination of bac kground values for larger areas are proposed. Background values for or ganic contaminants in not specifically polluted soils and groundwaters may be very low with extreme demands on chemical analysis. In case of sampling from larger areas therefore a compromise has to be found bet ween what is possible with great technical effort and what is requeste d and desirable for soil and groundwater protection.