Multidecadal declines in particulate mercury and sediment export from Russian rivers in the pan-Arctic basin.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35344436.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1073/pnas.2119857119 and PMC identifier 9168841.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC-ND.
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Abstract
SignificanceRussian rivers are the predominant source of riverine mercury to the Arctic Ocean, where methylmercury biomagnifies to high levels in food webs. Pollution controls are thought to have decreased late-20th-century mercury loading to Arctic watersheds, but there are no published long-term observations on mercury in Russian rivers. Here, we present a unique hydrochemistry dataset to determine trends in Russian river particulate mercury concentrations and fluxes in recent decades. Using hydrologic and mercury deposition modeling together with multivariate time series analysis, we determine that 70 to 90% declines in particulate mercury fluxes were driven by pollution reductions and sedimentation in reservoirs. Results suggest that Russian rivers likely dominated over all other sources of mercury to the Arctic Ocean until recently.