Contrasting sewage, emerging and persistent organic pollutants in sediment cores from the River Thames estuary, London, England, UK
2022
Vane, Christopher H. | Kim, Alexander W. | Lopes dos Santos, Raquel A. | Moss-Hayes, Vicky
Sedimentary organic pollution in the urban reaches of the Thames estuary is changing from fossil fuel hydrocarbons to emerging synthetic chemicals. De-industrialisation of London was assessed in three cores from Chiswick (Ait/Eyot) mud island using pharmaceuticals, faecal sterols, hydrocarbons (TPH, PAH), Black Carbon (BC) and organotins (TBT). These ranked in the order; BC 7590-30219 mg/kg, mean 16,000 mg/kg > TPH 770–4301, mean 1316 mg/kg > Σ¹⁶PAH 6.93–107.64, mean 36.46 mg/kg > coprostanol 0.0091–0.42 mg/kg, mean of 0.146 mg/kg > pharmaceuticals 2.4–84.8 μg/kg, mean 25 μg/kg. Hydrocarbons co-varied down-profile revealing rise (1940s), peak (1950s -1960s) and fall (1980s) and an overall 3 to 25-fold decrease. In contrast, antibiotics, anti-inflammatory (ibuprofen, paracetamol) and hormone (17β-estradiol) increased 3 to 50-fold toward surface paralleling increasing use (1970s-2018). The anti-epileptics, carbamazepine and epoxcarbamazepine showed appreciable down-core mobility. Faecal sterols confirmed non-systematic incorporation of treated sewage. Comparison to UK sediment quality guidelines indicate exceedance of AL2 for PAH whereas TBT was below AL1.
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