Prediction of the wash-off of traffic related semi- and non-volatile organic compounds from urban roads under climate change influenced rainfall characteristics

Abstract

Traffic generated semi- and non-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs and NVOCs) pose a serious threat to human and ecosystem health when washed off into receiving water bodies by stormwater. Climate change influenced rainfall characteristics makes the estimation of these pollutants in stormwater quite complex. The research study discussed in the paper developed a prediction framework for such pollutants under the dynamic influence of climate change on rainfall characteristics. It was established through principal component analysis (PCA) that the intensity and durations of low to moderate rain events induced by climate change mainly affect the wash-off of SVOCs and NVOCs from urban roads. The study outcomes were able to overcome the limitations of stringent laboratory preparation of calibration matrices by extracting uncorrelated underlying factors in the data matrices through systematic application of PCA and factor analysis (FA). Based on the initial findings from PCA and FA, the framework incorporated orthogonal rotatable central composite experimental design to set up calibration matrices and partial least square regression to identify significant variables in predicting the target SVOCs and NVOCs in four particulate fractions ranging from >300 to 1 μm and one dissolved fraction of <1 μm. For the particulate fractions in >300–1 μm range, similar distributions of predicted and observed concentrations of the target compounds from minimum to 75th percentile were achieved. The inter-event coefficient of variations for particulate fractions of >300–1 μm was 5–25%. The limited solubility of the target compounds in stormwater restricted the predictive capacity of the proposed method for the dissolved fraction of <1 μm.