Substance Flow Analysis of Mercury Affecting Water Quality in the European Union

Sundseth, Kyrre; Pacyna, Jozef M.; Pacyna, Elisabeth G.; Panasiuk, Damian

Substance Flow Analysis of Mercury Affecting Water Quality in the European Union

2012

Sundseth, Kyrre | Pacyna, Jozef M. | Pacyna, Elisabeth G. | Panasiuk, Damian

Knowledge concerning the main flows of priority substances (PSs) and the production systems and consumption structures in the society causing these flows is a prerequisite for any attempt to predict and understand their environmental fate as well as to efficiently minimize future environmental burdens. In this paper, a simple SFA diagram on mercury, including the main European Union (EU-27) source categories, flows and environmental endpoints which in turn affect the mercury concentrations in the EU-27 waters are illustrated. From trend analysis and future projections, it becomes obvious that emissions of mercury as a trace contaminant in fuels and minerals (primary anthropogenic emission sources) are becoming increasingly important to the environmental concentrations compared to emissions from mercury used intentionally (secondary anthropogenic sources). Additional future control strategies should therefore be targeted industrial sources and safe treatment of mercury-containing wastes, wastewater effluents, as well as residues collected from various combustion processes. It was found that knowledge on flows and emission sources on a large geographical scale is limited due to a lack of information on emission factors from various industrial processes and waste systems, especially for the mercury being discharges to water and land.

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