干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Real data from five residential urban arid catchments of varying size, slope, and perviousness ratio were used to develop regression equations for predicting mean concentrations of selected heavy metals in the urban runoff from duststorm and flow properties. The duststorms vary in their total particulate matter concentrations, whereas the flow resulted from rainstorms of different intensity, depth and duration, spatial and temporal distribution over the catchment, and dry period between two successive rainstorms. The selected metals are copper, lead, nickel, zinc and iron. About 80% of the collected data were randomly selected and used to develop these equations, while the remaining 20% of the data were used for the verification of the equations. The R-2 Of these equations varied from 0.76 to 0.88, and the significance of the regression parameters was supported by the results of the statistical inference analyses. The equations were used to identify the relative importance of the flash floods and duststorms on the concentrations of heavy metals. Based on the results, recommendations concerning water quality control in the investigated arid zone are made.