Abstract
The elevated sulfate deposition in the Hokuriku district in the winter season has been well documented; however, most observations have been conducted in an urban area but not in a mountainous area. In this study, snowfall was collected in the winter season in both an urban area (Kosugi-machi) and a mountainous area (Taira-mura) to compare the deposition of chemical compounds. In addition, spatial distributions of chemical compounds in snow from the urban area southward to the mountainous area were analyzed by sampling snow packs to complement the data obtained at the two sampling stations. In some of the snow-pack analyses, there was a distinct decrease in sulfate and nitrate concentrations according to the distance from the coastline, while other analyses showed fairly constant concentrations regardless of the distance from the coastline. The decreases in the concentrations seemed to reflect local emissions from the urban area, while the constant concentrations seemed to reflect the air pollutants that are widespread by long-range transportation. The fact that the total sulfate and nitrate depositions did not differ much between the urban and mountainous area throughout the winter might be evidence of long-range transportation.
