Oxygen-containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (OPAHs) are more toxic and more water soluble than their parent-PAHs. Little is however known about the concentrations, composition pattern, sources and fate of OPAHs in soil. In this book an accurate and precise analytical method for the determination of OPAHs together with parent-PAHs is reported. Method was further applied to soils from the Angren industrial region (Uzbekistan), Berlin (Germany), Bratislava (Slovakia) and Manaus (Brazil). OPAH and PAH concentrations were strongly correlated suggesting that both compound classes originated...