PI: Prof. HU Shouyun Research Period： 2012.1-2014.12

Within the last two decades active research work was carried out in order to investigate fast and cost-effective magnetic approaches for the assessment of industrial pollution, in particular heavy metal contamination in soils, sediments and air. Magnetic proxy methods became a promising tool for delineating ‘anomalous patterns’ (screening) before site selection for geochemical sampling, and also for repeated measurements (monitoring). Different targets were studied (soil, sediments, plants, passive air samplers). A new challenge is to acquire integrated information about the state of pollution by magnetic studies of different targets at a site selected by the needs for environmental assessment. Linfen (Shangxi Province, China) is such a ‘real’ pollution hotspot. Since 2003 it was notoriously listed as one of the worst polluted areas in China and in the world by Chinese environmental authorities as well as western research institutions and media because of coal mining, steel factories and refineries.

Within recent years local government action strongly improved the environmental conditions. We intend to perform a magnetic and geochemical (in particular heavy metals, partly organic substances) approach in this area choosing plants (needles and leaves), soil and lake sediments as targets, also considering atmospheric, biological and mineralogical information. Soils accumulate contaminants for long times (decades) and will be thus used for detecting the range of pollution during the period of strongest industrial impact. Plants are short-term samplers and therefore will deliver information about the situation within the last few years. From comparison of studies on soil and plants the dimension of the present environmental improvement can be deduced. Lake sediments will complement the information in respect of the pollution history before and during industrialization. The outcome of this project will provide answers about the potential of magnetic proxy methods for a ‘real case’ study including still existing weaknesses, enabling us to optimize the methodical approach for practical application. The research partners have a 17-years experience in bilateral cooperation and coordinated an international workshop on related topics in 2005 funded by the Sino-German Center.