Dioxins in peat and its formation: An overview

Figures & data

Figure 1. Basic structure of PCDD and PCDF

Table 1. Comparison of year 1985 maximum dioxins emission estimates with year 2000 emission and 2005 estimates of PCDD/Fs emissions in Europe

Sources (g I-TEQ/year)	1985 upper estimate (g I-TEQ/year)^a,b	2000 actual data (g I-TEQ/year)^b	Reduction (%)	2005 estimates (g I-TEQ/year)^a
Industrial sources Secondary Copper Production, Cement, Cable smelting, Non-Ferrous Metal foundries, Secondary Aluminum Production, Combustion in industry, Power plants, Electric Furnace Steel plant, Industrial Waste, Sintering of special materials and drossing facilities, Secondary zinc production, Hospital Waste, Sinter plants and Municipal Solid Waste Incinerator.	10,539	1619–2461	77–85	1011–1495
Non-industrial sources Domestic solid fuel combustion, Preservation of wood, Road transport, Illegal incineration of Domestic or municipal wastes, Incineration of corpses and Accidental fires	3151	846–2144	32–73	952–2257
Total of sources considered	13,690	2465–4605	66–82	1963–3752

^a(Quass et al., 2004)

^b(Quass et al., 2000)

Table 2. Global breakdown of peatland areal coverage

Continent	Country	Land area (km^2) (Worldatlas, 2018)	Peatland area (km^2) (J. Xu et al., 2018)	Percentage (%)
North America	Canada United States Others Total	9,084,977 9,161,923 6,462,100 24,709,000	1,132,614 197,841 8866 1,339,321	12.47 2.16 0.14 5.42
Asia	Asian Russia Indonesia China Malaysia Others Total	9,784,930 1,811,569 9,326,410 328,657 23,327,434 44,579,000	1,180,358 148,331 136,963 22,398 135,132 1,623,182	12.06 8.19 1.47 6.82 0.58 3.64
Europe	European Russia Finland Sweden United Kingdom Ireland Others Total	6,592,812 303,815 410,335 241,930 68,883 2,562,225 10,180,000	185,809 71,911 60,819 22,052 16,575 171,171 528,337	2.82 23.67 14.82 9.12 24.06 6.68 5.19
South America	Total	17,840,000	485,832	2.72
Africa	Total	30,370,000	187,061	0.62
Oceania	Total	7,692,024	68,636	0.89
Global	Total	148,647,000	4,232,369	2.85

Table 3. Average concentrations of major and trace elements (mg/kg) in peat

Element	Russia^a	United Kingdom^b	Estonia^c	Norway^d	Australia^e	Latvia^f
Cu	26.3	54.8	102.1	3.6	4.2	4.26
Pb	15	358	200.0	15.05	28.6	2.90
Zn	59.6	56.2	446.5	15.95	11.3	3.88
Fe	1783.3	3.52	1155	928.5	1686	217.5
Cd	-	2.09	17.4	0.72	2.7	0.03
Mn	68.6	25.4	146.5	3.95	-	3.61
Ni	-	10.9	46.6	2.0	-	0.76
Cr	-	15.9	-	0.85	-	1.77
Ca	-	80.8	-	-	-	575
Mg	-	246	-	-	-	188
Co	-	-	-	1.11	-	0.05

^aMarkert and Wtorova (1992), Jennifer and Hao (1993), Orru and Orru (2006), Frontasyeva and Steinnes (2005), and Simon and Thomas (2003), ^f Teirumnieka et al. (2010)

Table 4. Total PCDD/Fs, PCBs and PAHs in raw temperate peat samples

Sample	PCDD/Fs (pg WHO-TEQ g^−1)	PCBs (pg g^−1)	PAHs (µg g^−1)	Reference
Raw temperate peat (Canada)(n = 7)	2.10–7.28	-	-	Silk et al. (1997)
Raw temperate peat (Sweden)(n = 9)	0.73–6.43	900–1200	-	Bergknut et al. (2010)
Raw temperate peat (USA)(n = 2)	0.25–0.64	-	0.08–0.15	Black et al. (2016)
Raw temperate peat (Switzerland)(n = 7)	-	1170–18,940	0.125–2.853	Berset et al. (2001)
Raw temperate peat (Finland)(n = 14)	-	42,000–350,000	-	Himberg and Pakarinen (1994)
Raw temperate peat (UK)(n = 3)	-	-	0.101–1.112	Vane et al. (2013)
Raw temperate peat (UK)(n = 20)	-	4.6–36.8	1.25–25.88	Sanders et al. (1995)

Table 5. Total PCDD/Fs in related samples

Sample	Description	Country	∑PCDD/Fs	Reference
Vegetation (n = 3)	Unburned tree barks	Spain	0.45 to 0.65 pg I-TEQ/g	Martínez et al. (2000)
Forest soil (n = 3)	With vegetation	Spain	0.53 to 1.41 pg I-TEQ/g	Martínez et al. (2000)
Burned Vegetation (n = 5)	Burned pines, woods and bushes	Spain	0.10 to 0.66 pg I-TEQ/g	Martínez et al. (2000)
Burned Forest soil (n = 3)	With ashes	Spain	1.22 to 3.49 pg I-TEQ/g	Martínez et al. (2000)
Sediments (n = 3)	Top 1 cm of river bottom	Canada	1.82 to 4.98 pg/g	Gabos et al. (2001)
Forest soil (n = 3)	Topsoil (0–5 cm)	Korea	0.97 to 2.66 pg I-TEQ/g	Kim et al. (2003)
Burned Forest soil (n = 6)	Mixture of burned soil and ash	Korea	1.63 to 4.82 pg I-TEQ/g	Kim et al. (2003)
Soil (n = 20)	Farmland topsoil (0–20 cm)	China	0.82–57 pg I-TEQ/g	P. Xu et al. (2013)
Soil (n = 12)	Agent Orange dump site	Vietnam	0.0024 to 3300 pg WHO-TEQ/g dw	Huyen et al. (2015)
Soil (n = 10)	Industrial areas	Saudi Arabia	1.73 to 3.98 pg WHO-TEQ/g dw	Al-Wabel et al. (2016)
Soil (n = 238)	Background sites	Taiwan	1.28 to 9.95 pg WHO-TEQ/g dw	Hsu et al. (2018)
Soil (n = 143)	Contaminated sites	Taiwan	3.74 to 17.5 pg WHO-TEQ/g dw	Hsu et al. (2018)
Soil (n = 86)	Humus topsoil	Germany	2.2 to 105 pg WHO-TEQ/g dw	Pandelova et al. (2018)
Soil (n = 22)	Mineral topsoil (0–10 cm)	Germany	0.01 to 11.9 pg WHO-TEQ/g dw	Pandelova et al. (2018)
Soil (n = 36)	Herbicides storage sites topsoil (0–10 cm)	Vietnam	2.7 to 746 pg WHO-TEQ/g dw	Le et al. (2019)
Sediments (n = 4)	Bomb craters topsoil (0–10 cm)	Vietnam	22 to 358 pg WHO-TEQ/g dw	Le et al. (2019)
Soil (n = 15)	Subsurface soil (0–50 cm, 50–100 cm, 100–150 cm, 150–180 cm)	Vietnam	3.8 to 51.6 pg WHO-TEQ/g dw	Le et al. (2019)

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