| 1. |
- Nybom, Inna, et al.
(författare)
-
Effects of Organic Carbon Origin on Hydrophobic Organic Contaminant Fate in the Baltic Sea
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Environmental Science and Technology. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 0013-936X .- 1520-5851. ; 55:19, s. 13061-13071
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The transport and fate of hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOCs) in the marine environment are closely linked to organic carbon (OC) cycling processes. We investigated the influence of marine versus terrestrial OC origin on HOC fluxes at two Baltic Sea coastal sites with different relative contributions of terrestrial and marine OC. Stronger sorption of the more than four-ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and penta-heptachlorinated polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) was observed at the marine OC-dominated site. The site-specific partition coefficients between sediment OC and water were 0.2–1.0 log units higher at the marine OC site, with the freely dissolved concentrations in the sediment pore-water 2–10 times lower, when compared with the terrestrial OC site. The stronger sorption at the site characterized with marine OC was most evident for the most hydrophobic PCBs, leading to reduced fluxes of these compounds from sediment to water. According to these results, future changes in OC cycling because of climate change, leading to increased input of terrestrial OC to the marine system, can have consequences for the availability and mobility of HOCs in aquatic systems and thereby also for the capacity of sediments to store HOCs.
|
|
| 2. |
- Sobek, Anna, et al.
(författare)
-
Organic matter degradation causes enrichment of organic pollutants in hadal sediments
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Nature Communications. - 2041-1723. ; 14
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Burial of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in deep-sea sediments contributes to 60% of their historical emissions. Yet, empirical data on their occurrence in the deep-ocean is scarce. Estimates of the deep-ocean POP sink are therefore uncertain. Hadal trenches, representing the deepest part of the ocean, are hotspots for organic carbon burial and decomposition. POPs favorably partition to organic carbon, making trenches likely significant sinks for contaminants. Here we show that PCBs occur in both hadal (7720–8085 m) and non-hadal (2560–4050 m) sediment in the Atacama Trench. PCB concentrations normalized to sediment dry weight were similar across sites while those normalized to sediment organic carbon increased exponentially as the inert organic carbon fraction of the sediment increased in degraded hadal sediments. We suggest that the unique deposition dynamics and elevated turnover of organic carbon in hadal trenches increase POP concentrations in the deepest places on Earth.
|
|
| 3. |
- Wilkinson, John L., et al.
(författare)
-
Pharmaceutical pollution of the world's rivers
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 119:8
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world's rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
|
|
