Predicting the contribution of a local emission source in mid-range transport of DDT and its deposition in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems in Northern Italy

A recently developed dynamic multiple box multimedia fate model (Gridded-SoilPlusVeg, or GSPV) was developed and implemented to account for the environmental variation and the effect of directional advective transport of chemicals towards different compartments and geographical locations. A chemical plant located in Pieve Vergonte in Ossola Valley produced and emitted DDTs for around 50 years. In the previous study the fate and transport of p,p’-DDT emitted from the chemical plant were evaluated in nearby areas (up to 12 km). In this paper, the GSPV model was run for p,p’-DDT from its production period and decades after the production stop in 1996 (a total of 100 years) for a much larger study area (40,000 km2) in order to evaluate the contribution of a local source on a larger scale. Additionally, the deposition fluxes into the lakes were calculated and were used as input into a dynamic fugacity-based aquatic model to calculate DDT concentration in water and sediments of three Prealpine lakes: Lake Maggiore, Lake Como and Lake Lugano. The results of the simulations were compared with the monitoring and literature data. The results obtained from GSPV allowed to estimate the atmospheric deposition fluxes and identify the role of this source for the regional scale contamination in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.