Assessment of mercury content in the Morava river [Czech Republic] water ecosystem
1997
Bernardova, I. (Water Research Inst., Brno (Czech Republic)) | Jurajda, P. | Zahradska, S.
Water ecosystems generally show the highest load of toxic pollutants. Sanitary risks to public health caused through consumption of fish and/or water are not negligible. According to the available data and public health limits the heavy metals content presents the most serious specific pollutants threat in the Morava River basin. Though the watershed is not very rich in chemical or electrotechnological industries the mercury content in the ecosystems presents the most serious heavy metals risk. The goal of the presented paper is to give a comprehensive picture of mercury pollution of the water ecosystem components. To identify "hot spots" the proposed monitoring system was based on ten sites located downstream from major potential sources of pollution. Besides spatial changes the obtained results enable to compare data from water, fish, benthic macroinvertebrates and sediments. They also aler us to the fact that in major part of fish samples the public health limit was exceeded. Moreover, a high positive correlation between the mercury concentration in muscle tissue and length of the marker fish (chub) was found
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