Site-specific diel mercury emission fluxes in landfill: Combined effects of vegetation and meteorological factors

Mercury emission fluxes (MEFs) under different surface coverage conditions in a landfill were investigated in this study. The results show similar diel patterns of Hg emission flux under different coverage conditions, with peak fluxes occurring at midday and decreasing during night. We examined the effects of environmental factors on MEFs, such as the physiological characteristics of vegetation and meteorological conditions. The results suggest that growth of vegetation in the daytime facilitates the release of Hg in the anaerobic unit, while in the semi-aerobic unit, where vegetation had been removed, the higher mercury content of the cover soil prompted the photo-reduction pathway to become the main path of mercury release and increased MEFs. MEFs are positively correlated with solar radiation and air temperature, but negatively correlated with relative humidity. The correlation coefficients for MEFs with different environmental parameters indicate that in the anaerobic unit, solar radiation was the main influence on MEFs in September, while air temperature became the main determining factor in December. These observations suggest that the effects of meteorological conditions on the mercury release mechanism varies depending on the vegetation and soil pathways.