Elements in water, suspended particulate matter and sediments of the Sava River

Abstract

Purpose River ecosystems are under pressure from several different stressors. Among these, inorganic pollutants contribute to multiple stressor situations and the overall degradation of the ecological status of the aquatic environments. The main sources of pollution include different industrial activities, untreated effluents from municipal waste waters and intensive agriculture. In the present study, water, suspended particulate matter (SPM) and sediments of the Sava River were studied in order to assess the pollution status of this river system. Materials and methods Sampling was performed during the first sampling campaign of the EU 7th FW funded GLOBAQUA project in September 2014, at 18 selected sampling sites along the Sava River. In 2014, floods predominated from spring to fall. Water samples were collected to determine the total element concentrations, the dissolved (0.45 μm) fraction and element concentrations in SPM. In order to assure comparative results with other river basins, the fraction below 63 μm was analysed in sediments. The extent of pollution was estimated by determination of the total element concentrations and by the identification of the most hazardous highly mobile element fractions (extraction 0.11 mol L −1 acetic acid) and anthropogenic inputs of elements to sediments (normalization to aluminium (Al) concentration). Concentrations of selected elements were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Results and discussion Since during sampling campaign the water level was extremely high, water samples contained high amounts of SPM (in general between 80 and 100 mg L −1). The data of chemical analysis revealed that concentrations of elements in water, SPM and sediments in general increase along the Sava River from its origin to the confluence with the Danube River. Elevated concentrations of chromium (Cr) and nickel (Ni) in SPM and sediments were observed at industrially exposed sites. Concentrations of Cr and Ni in sediments were up to 320 and 250 mg kg −1 , respectively. Nevertheless, these elements were present in sparingly soluble forms and hence did not represent an environmental threat. Phosphorus (P) was found in elevated concentrations (up to 1500 mg kg −1) at regions with intensive agricultural activities and cities with dense population. Conclusions With respect to element concentrations, the pollution of the Sava River is similar to other moderately polluted European rivers. The data from the present study are beneficial for the water management authorities and can contribute to sustainable utilization, management and protection of the Sava River water resources.

Potentially toxic elements in the riparian soils of the Sava River

“…Due to the persistence of many pollutants and their bioaccumulation potential, sediments represent a serious threat to riverine ecosystems (Vuković et al 2011). Studies on heavy metals and other pollutants in river water and sediments have multiplied in recent years, especially for large rivers such as the Danube (Woitke et al 2003;Crnković et al 2008;Pavlović et al 2016), the Sava and their tributaries the Drava and the Kolubara (Orescanin et al 2004;Crnković et al 2008;Vuković et al 2011;Vidmar et al 2017;Milačič et al 2017;Čakmak et al 2018), the Tisza (Sakan and Đorđević 2010), and the Po (Vignati et al 2003). Other researchers have studied contamination of riparian soil along the Danube (Pavlović et al 2016), the Sava and their tributaries the Drava and the Kolubara (Vertačnik et al 1995;Halamić et al 2003;Šajn et al 2011;Šajn and Gosar 2014;Čakmak et al 2018), and the Odra (Ciesielczuk et al 2014), but such studies are documented much scarcely.…”

Occurrence and speciation of arsenic and mercury in estuarine sediments affected by mining activities (Asturias, northern Spain)

“…The only exception is the measurements performed by the Asturias Regional Port Authority on recent estuarine sediments which demonstrated significant concentrations of Hg (0.15-1.56 µg•g −1 ) and As (20.00-39.20 µg•g −1 ) in the period 2003-2011. However, the toxicity and mobility of As and Hg in estuarine sediments strongly depend on their specific chemical forms along with their binding with sediment particles (Eggleton and Thomas, 2004;Vidmar et al, 2017). In this context, our work aims to investigate not only the total concentration distribution of these two elements but also their speciation in surface sediments, as well as the relationships between sediment particles and the specific geochemical conditions of the study area.…”

Preface

“…Six published papers are dealing with soils focusing on organic matter composition in rice-paddy soils (Cheng et al 2017) and degradation of organic matter in Andisol and Inceptisol paddy soils (Tang et al 2017), morphology of fly-ash contaminated soil (Weber et al 2017), the relationship between soil properties and plant community in a lagoon (Antisari et al 2017), methane transformation in a drained wetland soil (Jerman et al 2017), and the sources of soil CO 2 above a subterranean cave (Krajnc et al 2017). Five published papers consider biogeochemical processes in freshwater sediments focusing on metals in sediments of several areas, including the largest mercury mine district in Almaden area (Garcia-Ordiales et al 2017), in the Zrmanja River estuary (Fiket et al 2017) and in the Sava River (Vidmar et al 2017), as well as the characteristics of ammonia oxidizers in aquaculture ponds (Zhou et al 2017) and the effect of sediment grain size on heterotrophic respiration (Mori et al 2017). Five papers are devoted to marine sediments comprising hydrocarbons in coastal area (Bajt 2017), microbial mercury transformation processes (Hines et al 2017), historical deposition of trace elements in saltmarshes (Covell et al 2017) and the accumulation of metal(loid)s in halophytes (Petranich et al 2017), and the characteristics of microbial mats in a marine mangrove (Gontharet et al 2017).…”