The Distribution Characteristics of Typical Organochlorine Pesticides in Shallow Sediments of the Yangtze River Estuary

The typical organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) distribution of the Yangtze River estuary was studied for shallow sediments from Qidong Jiangsu, Chongming Island, Changxing and Hengsha Island Shanghai. The detection limit is 0.10 ng/g, the recovery of samples are 62.4%-116.7% and the relative standard deviation (RSD) are 2.7%-8.3% by using Gas Chromatography equipment with electron capture detector (ECD). Research results indicate that mild and moderate contamination of OCPs did exist along the coast of Yangtze River estuary and the mainly detected total DDTs ranged from 1.22 to 626.43 ng/g. The results show that DDTs had been detected at the depth of 0-80 cm. DDT distributions in shallow sediments at the depth of 0-20 cm, 20-40 cm, 40-60 cm and 60-80 cm are 58.1%, 30.8%, 8.2% and 2.9% of the total contents, respectively. The DDTs are primarily distributed at depths of 0-40 cm in shallow sediments. A few DDTs were detected for some samples from 40-80 cm area. The results provide some references for the vertical profile of OCPs in this region.