Assessment of Trace Metals Leaching During Rainfall Events from Building Rooftops with Different Types of Coverage – Case Study

Abstract

Runoff water is an important medium transporting various types of pollution originating from the atmosphere and washed out from roofing materials. The study presents a quality assessment of runoff from different roofs in the context of trace metal concentrations. Analysed rooftops were covered with copper, tar paper and ceramic tile. The quality of the rain water collected at the same time satisfies the demands of the first grade of cleanliness according to (Dz.U. 2016 poz.1187). The highest content of copper was leached from the copper roof - the roof runoff contained 10.23 mg∙dm-3. In case of zinc the highest concentration of 15.52 mg∙dm-3 was present in the runoff from roof covered with thermally bonded tar paper. The amount of trace metals in ceramic roof runoff was the lowest and only for zinc slightly exceeded 1.47 mg∙dm-3 – the value determined for II class of purity. In the paper the different level of heavy metals leaching from different roofing materials has been confirmed.

Keywords

• trace metals
• roof materials
• precipitation
• roof runoff