Historic pollution

III. METEOROLOGICAL CONDITIONS DURING HISTORIC POLLUTION EPISODES... 

II. Meteorological Conditions during Historic Pollution Episodes... 

I. Mieck. Reflections on a Typology of Historical Pollution Complementary Conceptions. In The Silent Countdown Essays in European Environmental Efistory. Peter Brimblecombe and Christian Pfister, eds. Berlin Springer-Verlag, 19... 

Castilla y Leon, and Castilla la Mancha. This part is also the most significant for industrial plants such as biomass crops and oilseed rape. In the southernmost regions of Castilla La Mancha and Catalunya, dry fruit trees and vineyards increase in significance, while the Ebro River delta supports a well-developed rice farming activity. Diffuse pollution originated by pesticides application in the basin has been widely studied [1-3]. A historical pollution from chemical plants manufacturing solvents and chlorinated pesticides in the southern part of the river basin is also well known [4]. Automobile, textile, food, and wood industry as well as mining activities are important in the northern part. 

Climate change will impact on water quality and quantity and hydromorphology and may thus remobilise historic pollutants from river bottom sediments and/or floodplain soils. However, the extent of this impact is still largely unclear and there is also a lack of feasible measures to mitigate the (potential) impacts. 

Illustrative Example 19.3 Release ofPCBs from the Historically Polluted Sediments of Boston Harbor... 

Szolar, O.H., H. Rost, D. Hermann, M. Hasinger, R. Braun, and A.P. Loibner. 2004. Sequential supercritical fluid extraction (SSFE) for estimating the availability of high molecular weight polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in historically polluted soils. J. Environ. Qual. 33 80-88. 

S.2 Perturbatory Processes in Lake Sediments. The extent to which conditions for preservation of records are met depends upon the characteristics of the specific individual systems and contaminants under study. In reviewing the perturbation of historical pollution records in aquatic sediments. Farmer has suggested that in the case... 

A number of useful reviews exists on the use of sediment cores to reconstruct historical pollution trends (Alderton, 1985 Farmer, 1991 ... 

The variation in total sediment Zn with depth is illustrated in Figure 2.6. There is a clear trend of essentially constant values of total Zn (around 150 ppm) from 1500 mm to approximately 1000 mm, with a steady increase in concentrations from 1000 mm to 225 ppm at 400 mm. Concentrations of Zn remain at approximately this latter value until they fall to 200 ppm in the uppermost 50 mm. In contrast to this clear trend, concentrations of zinc in the residual phase (non-pollutant zinc) remain approximately constant with depth (-75 ppm) (Figure 2.7). We are now faced with the problem of interpretation and the key question is does the well-defined depth trend of total Zn represent a historic pollution record or is it partly (or entirely) a function of sediment characteristics and/or early diagenetic processes ... 

Farmer, J.G. (1991) The pertubation of historical pollution records in aquatic sediments. Environmental Geochemistry and Health 13, 76-83,... 

Rae, J.E. Allen, J.R.L. (1993) The significance of organic matter degradation in the interpretation of historical pollution trends in depth profiles of estuarine sediment. Estuaries 16, 678-82. 

The mobilization of sorbed xenobiotics is of serious concern in areas subjected to historical pollution and this has motivated extensive investigations on desorption. For example, studies with sediment from New Bedford Harbor, Massachusetts revealed both the significant role of organic carbon and that increased desorption of PCB congeners occurred in distilled water than in saline water such data clearly support the concept of three phases in partitioning models (Brannon et al. 1991). 

Low-level environmental exposure to Cd may thus promote skeletal demineralization, which may lead to increased bone fragility and raised risk of fractures. Therefore it has been proposed that a CdU value of 2 pg Cd/g creatinine should be regarded as the maximum tolerable internal Cd dose for individuals from the general population. Hence, one may assume that in the early 1990 s about 10% of the general population in Belgium exceeded this threshold value and that it amoimted to 20% in the rural area with historical pollution by Cd from non-ferrous smelters. In this area, a clear-cut impact of a preventive action to decrease the Cd transfer from the environment to the inhabitants was observed, because the Cd concentration... 

Grahn, E., Karlsson, S., Karlsson, U. and Duker, A. (2006) Historical pollution of seldom monitored trace elements in Sweden-Part B Sediment analysis of silver, antimony, thallium and indium. J Environ Mon, 8 (7), 732-744. 

The term historical burdens is used to describe anthropogenic contamination of soils and groundwater caused by manufacturing, transport or military activities since the beginning of industrialization but not by current processes. The number of detected or cases of such historical pollution is immense in Germany it is about 250 000. The funds required for cleaning up such sites and rendering them safe are considerable the present estimate is 200 billion DM (about 100 billion ECU). 

Mieck, L., 1990. Reflections of a typology of historical pollution complementary conceptions. In Brimblecombe, P., Pfister, C. (Eds.), The Silent Countdown. Springer Verlag, New York, pp. 73-80. 

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