Mapping PFAS in stormwater
PFASs are a group of chemicals that have been of great interest over the last decade due to their persistence and mobility in the environment and their hazardous properties.
Enormous interest
In our latest webinar in May, Hannah Johansson, municipal PhD candidate within DRIZZLE in collaboration with Växjö municipality, talked about her work on mapping PFAS in stormwater. The webinar had a record number of almost 200 participants. Given the enormous interest in the topic, we want to spread information about Hannah's research studies also to those who could not take part in the webinar.
Ongoing project
Despite the fact that PFAS are widely spread and can be found almost everywhere, there is currently little research on the presence of PFAS in stormwater. Therefore, the purpose of Hannah's ongoing study is to map and investigate the presence of PFAS in stormwater, which PFAS substances are present and whether there are any differences between different urban catchments.
In the ongoing study, sampling has been carried out in six Swedish cities with a total of 42 sampling sites. The cities included in the study are Växjö, Linköping, Norrköping, Stockholm, Östersund and Luleå. All sampling sites were located in urban areas within the cities with runoff from different types of land use, such as industrial areas, business areas, green areas, etc. The sampling was carried out during the period May - September 2024 in different types of stormwater bodies, such as ponds, swales and gully pots. All samples were analyzed for over 50 different PFAS substances, including long, short and ultra-short PFAS chains. The TOP Assay PFAS analysis has also been performed.
The results show that at least one type of PFAS was above detection limit in all samples. The most abundant PFASs were the long-chain PFOS and PFOA, short-chain PFHxA and ultrashort-chain TFA. TFA was also the dominant PFAS substance in the majority of samples. The study is still ongoing and more data analyses need to be performed to draw further conclusions. The aim is to publish the study later on this year.
Previous study
In a previous study on the presence of PFAS in urban stormwater, published in February 2024, 47 stormwater samples from Östersund, taken in 2012-2013, were analyzed. 45 of these contained at least one PFAS substance. The highest concentrations were measured in central urban environments, indicating that urban areas can be significant sources of PFAS dispersion via stormwater.
- Occurrence of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) in stormwater from urban areas in Östersund
External link, opens in new window.Report aiming to increase knowledge about the occurrence of PFAS in stormwater systems in urban areas, from a Swedish perspective
Contact us:
Want to know more about the project? Contact hannah.johansson@ltu.se
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