Gaseous mercury emissions from subtropical forested and open field soils in a national nature reserve, southwest China

Total gaseous mercury flux measurements of forested and open field soils in the subtropical forest zones, in Chongqing, Southwestern China were monitored from April 2011 to March 2012 to provide insight into the characteristics of gaseous mercury flux with and without vegetation covers. Samples were collected from surfaces of forest and open field as the most representative terrestrial surfaces in Jinyun Mountain. Simultaneously meteorological parameters at the soil level relating GEM fluxes to soil temperature, air humidity, solar radiation were analyzed and variations of atmospheric GEM concentration were examined. The results showed that annual averaged fluxes from soil in the forest and open-air site were 14.23 ng m(2) h(-1) and 20.74 ng m(2) h(-1) respectively, with a clear seasonal variation for each surface. The soil surface displayed the largest difference between evening and daytime flux, particularly in spring and summer in open field surface (i.e., with low flux in evening (1.93 ng m(2) h(-1)) to high flux in daytime (97.86 ng m(2) h(-1)) in summer). GEM fluxes in the open-air site were positively correlated with solar irradiation and soil temperature, and inversely correlated with air humidity. In the forest site, GEM fluxes showed weaker correlation with meteorological variables. Based on the whole year experiments and field tests, it can be found that in some season (especially fall), the mercury emission fluxes were more highly dependent on solar radiation and less dependent on temperature. The regression results demonstrated that each surface displayed similar responses to time series change in meteorological parameters. A comparison between one year periods in the two sites showed much larger emission from the open field with forest conversion to bare soil. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.