Air monitoring of persistent organic pollutants in the Great Lakes: IADN vs. AEOLOS

Abstract

When designing a monitoring campaign, one has to consider many factors in the decision to perform a long-term synoptic monitoring program or a short-term intensive study. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. This paper compares and contrasts the information obtained from two studies conducted on the Laurentian Great Lakes. One, the Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network (IADN), is a long-term synoptic monitoring study and the other, the Atmospheric Exchange Over Lakes and Oceans (AEOLOS), was a short-term intensive study. The advantages of long-term synoptic monitoring programs are providing greater spatial information, the relative influence of long and short-range transport on the regional background, gross loadings representative of the majority of each lake and long-term temporal trends. Short-term intensive studies provide more information on the processes governing sources, transport and deposition, such as the urban/industrial influence on adjacent large water bodies, specific sources to an urban/industrial area and short-term fluctuations in concentrations due to meteorology, source strength and photochemical reactions. Using information provided by both the IADN and AEOLOS studies, areas of urban influence are predicted for each of the five Great Lakes.