Many Eastern European countries suffer the lack of data on concentrations of persistent organic pollutants in the environmental matrices. This absence of information is preventing the local authorities from taking the adequate actions to protect the people and environment. This is even more alarming in the countries recently affected by the wars where the chemicals released to the environment during the military operations can cause a significant ecological damage and health effects on the population. A potential of passive air sampling technique as a tool capable of providing seasonally and spatially resolved information about the local sources and levels of contamination was explored in this study as a first step to the establishment of a cost-effective long-term monitoring in this area. The passive air samplers proved to be a powerful technique capable of detecting the concentrations ranging over four orders of magnitude providing the information very comparable with the conventional techniques.

Research Centre for Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology Masaryk University Kamenice 126 3 62500 Brno Czech Republic

References provided by Crossref.org

Spatial and Temporal Trends of Persistent Organic Pollutants across Europe after 15 Years of MONET Passive Air Sampling

Effect-based assessment of passive air samples from four countries in Eastern Europe

Composition and effects of inhalable size fractions of atmospheric aerosols in the polluted atmosphere: part I. PAHs, PCBs and OCPs and the matrix chemical composition