Recent sudden decrease of lead in Adriatic coastal seawater during the years 2000–2004 in parallel with the phasing out of leaded gasoline in Italy

Lichens Used as Monitors of Atmospheric Pollution Around Agadir (Southwestern Morocco)—A Case Study Predating Lead-Free Gasoline

“…The field campaign took place in 2005, before lead was banned from gasoline used in Morocco (officially on January 1st 2006). The expected outcome of phasing out alkyllead gasoline is an improvement in terms of atmospheric quality, as such an improvement has been observed in countries where leaded gasoline has already been banned (e.g., Candelone et al 1995;von Storch et al 2003;Annibaldi et al 2009 and references cited therein). The objectives of the present work are as follows: (1) to update the scarce environmental lead isotopic database concerning leaded gasoline sold in Morocco before its phasing out from the market, (2) to use lichen analysis to establish a reference level of atmospheric pollution at that time, which might be valuable in the near future to verify improvements resulting from environmental policies, (3) to assess the general level of urban-derived pollution along the dominant west-east wind direction, and (4) to confirm the pertinence of methodologies previously described for the study of geochemical and isotopic data obtained from lichens (Monna et al 2006).…”

Cd, Pb and Cu in spring waters of the Sibylline Mountains National Park (Central Italy), determined by square wave anodic stripping voltammetry

“…Cadmium shows the lowest concentrations of the three metals, with values of 1-2 ng L -1 , close to the detection limit for SWASV of ~0.5 ng L -1 (Annibaldi et al, 2009) and this fact justifies the presence of high standard deviations. Ussita public fountain, July 2008 1.5 ± 0.1 (7%) 24.6 ± 0.6 (2%) 366 ± 10 (3%) Each value represents the mean of at least 3 measurements.…”

Pb, Cu and Cd distribution in five estuary systems of Marche, central Italy

“…Heavy metals released into rivers by fertilizers, mining tailing, and industrial and urban wastewater raise special concerns because they are non degradable. They accumulate in sea sediment and may be released overlying water, during re-mobilisation events or due to changes in the physico-chemical characteristics of water (McAlister and Orians, 2012;Annibaldi et al, 2009). In addition, heavy metals taken up by marine organisms can move to higher trophic levels and enter the human food chain through contaminated seafood (Pan and Wang, 2012).…”