Arsenic global emissions

Global emission values for antimony and arsenic are listed in Table 5, for global emissions of the two elements from both natural and human sources. These data were taken from detailed studies of inventories carried out in mid- to the late 1970s, but they have subsequently been adapted to incorporate more recent information . Table 5 shows that the human sources of both antimony and arsenic exceed the natural sources. 

TABLE 5. Global emissions (kty" ) of antimony and arsenic to the atmosphere ... 

Globally, volcanoes release about 17 150 metric tons (t) of arsenic per year into the atmosphere (It equals 1000 kg (Matschullat, 2000), 300). Other significant natural sources of gaseous arsenic emissions include geothermal vents, wind erosion of soils and sediments, forest and coal seam fires, and sea spray ((Cullen and Reimer, 1989), 740 (Nriagu, 1989) Chapter 3). Under reducing conditions in soils, fungi and... 

Global man-made releases or arsenic into the atmosphere have been estimated by several authors in the past and also more recently. These data were - and still are -divergent as they suffer from large uncertainties due to limited information available. In the first edition of this book, the total anthropogenic As emission per annum was estimated at around 124000 tons, of which about 50000 tons was due to combustion of fossil fuels, mainly from data reported in the late 1970s (Leonard 1991). 

Fig. 4 Global metal emissions to the atmosphere by region (tonnes/year) for arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg) and molybdenum (Mo) (a) chromium (Cr), copper (Cu) and manganese Mn (b) nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), vanadium (V) and zinc (Zn) (c) and antimony (Sb), selenium (Se), tin (Sn) and thallium (Tl) (d) (data from Pacyna and Pacyna 2001)...

Weathering of rocks and soils adds about 45,000 tons of arsenic to the oceans annually, accounting for less than 0.01 mg/L on a global basis. However, arsenic inputs to oceans increased during the past century both from natural sources and as a result of industrial use, agricultural and deforestation activities, emissions from coal and oil combustion, and loss during mining of metal ores. If present... 

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