BOREAS TGB-07: Herbicide and Organochlorine Air Concentrations

BOREAS TGB-07 data contains ambient air concentration measurements for multiple agricultural pesticides and industrial chemicals. Sampling occurred during two summer field campaigns in 1993 and 1994 at a site within Prince Albert National Park, Canada. The dataset includes seven herbicides common to the Canadian prairies, three additional herbicides, two groups of insecticides, and several polychlorinated biphenyls to study atmospheric transport and deposition.

Use Cases

• Modeling atmospheric transport and deposition of agricultural chemicals based on concentration and flux measurements.
• Assessing long-range environmental contamination by tracking persistent organic pollutants like DDT and PCBs.
• Studying seasonal and interannual variability in pesticide concentrations from time-series data collected over two summers.
• Investigating the presence of herbicides and insecticides in remote food chains as referenced in the literature.

Strengths

• Data collection is tied to a specific, well-documented scientific campaign (BOREAS) under NASA.
• Covers a defined time range with two discrete sampling periods (summer 1993 and summer 1994).
• Measures a specific suite of 12+ chemical compounds, providing targeted chemical analysis.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: exact column names, row counts, and file sizes are unknown across all sources.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (1994 vs. 2026) create uncertainty about data currency and maintenance.
• Documentation gaps exist, as the specific license is only generically noted as 'other-license-specified'.

Provenance

Source

BOREAS TGB-07 team, associated with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Collection Method

Field sampling and laboratory analysis of air, rainwater, and dry deposition samples.

Time Range

June 16 to August 13, 1993 and May 4 to July 20, 1994.

Freshness

2026-03-13 (from datagov, though this conflicts with the 1994 end date of the study)

Geography

BOREAS site in Prince Albert National Park (Waskesiu), Saskatchewan, Canada.