The Chinese Academy of Sciences is working to gauge the effects of organic pollutants across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau by establishing 19 sites to measure environmental factors.

Focused on assessing the spatial distribution of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), Dr. Wang Xiaoping and her colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research have been conducting a project entitled "The Qinghai-Tibetan Atmospheric Passive Sampling (QTAPS)."

The establishment of the QTAPS network, which includes 19 sites, has been underway for a year and has allowed the team to conduct studies on POPs in the snow and atmosphere around Mount Everest. The location of the stations covers major parts of the Plateau and various climate types so the team can map the spatial distribution of persistent contaminants across the Plateau and investigate the relationships between the spatial distribution and the relative composition of POPs to study the effects of climate change and monsoon bloom on the distribution and source age of POPs.

Data on pollutant concentrations in the atmosphere are scarce and the extent of impacts is unknown in this area of China. Via long-term studies at the QTAPS network, the impact of the long-range atmospheric transport of POPs on the Plateau environment is expected to continue.