Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(8), 850; doi:10.3390/ijerph14080850
Quantifying Grain-Size Variability of Metal Pollutants in Road-Deposited Sediments Using the Coefficient of Variation
1
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
2
China International Engineering Consulting Corporation, Beijing 100048, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Received: 26 June 2017 / Revised: 20 July 2017 / Accepted: 22 July 2017 / Published: 28 July 2017
(This article belongs to the Section Environmental Science and Engineering)
Abstract
Particle grain size is an important indicator for the variability in physical characteristics and pollutants composition of road-deposited sediments (RDS). Quantitative assessment of the grain-size variability in RDS amount, metal concentration, metal load and GSFLoad is essential to elimination of the uncertainty it causes in estimation of RDS emission load and formulation of control strategies. In this study, grain-size variability was explored and quantified using the coefficient of variation (Cv) of the particle size compositions, metal concentrations, metal loads, and GSFLoad values in RDS. Several trends in grain-size variability of RDS were identified: (i) the medium class (105–450 µm) variability in terms of particle size composition, metal loads, and GSFLoad values in RDS was smaller than the fine (<105 µm) and coarse (450–2000 µm) class; (ii) The grain-size variability in terms of metal concentrations increased as the particle size increased, while the metal concentrations decreased; (iii) When compared to the Lorenz coefficient (Lc), the Cv was similarly effective at describing the grain-size variability, whereas it is simpler to calculate because it did not require the data to be pre-processed. The results of this study will facilitate identification of the uncertainty in modelling RDS caused by grain-size class variability. View Full-TextKeywords:
road-deposited sediment; grain size variability; coefficient of variation; metal pollution
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Zhao, H.; Wang, X.; Li, X. Quantifying Grain-Size Variability of Metal Pollutants in Road-Deposited Sediments Using the Coefficient of Variation. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14, 850.
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