M. Kalina et al., Time trends in the concentrations of lead in wet precipitation from rural and urban sites in Austria, CHEMOSPHERE, 38(11), 1999, pp. 2509-2515
Trend and time series analysis of concentrations of lead in wet precipitati
on at different rural and urban sampling sites in Austria, collected during
intervals of 6 - 12 years (between 1984 and 1995) is performed. A substant
ial decrease of the lead concentrations for all sites in consideration is o
bserved similar to observations in Germany, Sweden and North sea and wester
n Atlantic regions. Reductions in rural sites between 60 and 80 % in 10 yea
rs and around 90 % in 10 years in urban areas are found. This trend correla
tes with the reduction of lead emissions from combustion of gasoline. The s
easonal deconvolution model of the data set reveals a typical seasonality w
ith lead concentration peaks in summer and spring for the rural sites and w
inter peaks for urban sites. The average annual lead concentration in the r
ural region for 1995 was 1.25 mu g/l, in the urban region 2.25 mu g/l. (C)
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