The Annual Characteristics of Rainwater HCHO in Guiyang City, Southwest of China

AbstractHCHO is ubiquitous and important chemical constitutes in the troposphere. The concentrations of the HCHO (aq) in the rainwater were measured in the Guiyang city, southeastern of China from May 2006 to April 2007 and 153 discrete samples were collected. Rainwater (N = 151) HCHO (aq) concentrations ranged from lower than method detection limit (MDL) to 40.2 µmol/L with a volume weighted mean value of 7.4 ± 8.8 µmol/L. The strong correlations between HCHO (aq) and HCOO− (r = 0.69, n = 137), HCHO (aq) and nss‐${\rm SO}_{{\rm 4}}^{{\rm 2 - }} $ (r = 0.74, n = 137), HCHO (aq) and ${\rm NO}_{{\rm 3}}^{{\rm - }} $ (r = 0.67, n = 137), HCHO (aq) and ${\rm NH}_{{\rm 4}}^{{\rm + }} $ (r = 0.74, n = 133) suggest the significant influence of the anthropogenic input for the HCHO (aq) levels. The concentration levels of rainwater HCHO (aq) was inversely proportional to the amount of rainfall, indicating the below‐cloud process is the most important mechanism for rainwater HCHO (aq) scavenging processes. More than 70% of the HCHO (aq) wet deposition took place during the early stage of the rainfall. According to the air mass back‐trajectory analysis, the rainwater with industrial back‐trajectories coming from the north had the highest levels of HCHO (aq) while the rainwater with the green‐covered or marine back‐trajectories from the southeast had the lowest concentrations, and this indicate the HCHO (aq) originated from urban or industrial regions served as an important source of the rainwater. The annual HCHO (aq) wet deposition flux was calculated as 6.96 mmol/m2 per year and the total deposition flux was estimated as 24.35 mmol/m2 per year, 71.4% of which was dominated by dry deposition.