The aim of study was to investigate polluted amounts 16 PAHs in railroad(waste railway ties) area, factory area and land-fill area. All of the samples were analyzed by GC-MSD(SIM mode), and the recovery range, detection limit and standard deviation obtained by this experiment were 73.88 ~ 94.75%, 0.009 ~ 2.252 μg/kg and 1.861 ~ 12.373, respectively. The concentrations of total PAHs(t-PAHs) and total carcinogenic PAHs(t-PAHcarc) in soils of three area were in the range of 12.54 ~ 3274.95 μg/kg on a wet weight basis with a mean value of 499.8 μg/kg and 0 ~122.77 μg/kg with a mean value of 20.16 μg/kg, respectively. The correlation between t-PAHs and t-PAHcarc appeared very high in railroad(waste railway ties) area (R2 = 0.8301), factory area (R2 = 0.9217) except land-fill area(R2 = 0.3782), indicated that t-PAHcarc concentration increases in proportion with t-PAHs.

A phytoremediation study has been conducted to see if some known aquatic plants can remove the pesticides, endosulfan-α, β and fenitrothion which are frequently used in the crop protection and golf course management, and are likely to exist as residual pollutants in the aquatic ecosystems. Among the five aquatic plants tested in the microcosms, water lily Nymphaea tetragona Georgi showed the highest degradation efficacies (85~95%) for the three pesticides as opposed to the control(13~26%). The efficacies for the other plants were in the range of 46~80% in the order of Pistia stratiotes, Cyperus helferi, Eichhornia crassipes, and Iris pseudoacorus. Fenitrothion, an organo-phosphorus pesticide, was much more vulnerable to the phytoremediation than the organo-chlorine pesticides, endosulfan-α and endosulfan-β. The kinetic rate constants (min-1) for removal of the three pesticides were more than 10 times higher than the control (non-planting) in case of Nymphaea tetragona Georgi. This aquatic plant showed kinetic rate constants about 2 times as much as the lower kinetic rate constants shown by Iris pseudoacorus. The reason for the highest degradation efficacy of water lily would be that the plant can live in the sediment and possess roots and broad leaves which could absorb or accumulate and degrade more pollutants in association with microbes. These results indicate that some of the selected aquatic plants planted near the agricultural lands and wetlands could contribute to remediation of pesticides present in these places, and could be applicable to protection of the aquatic ecosystems.