Abstract
Legacy pollutants (e.g Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd) are well studied and known to deposit in regions of sedimentation along rivers like the Elbe River located in northern Germany. Recently technologically critical elements (TCEs) gained more and more interest as potential emerging pollutants in river systems due to their increasing usage in industry and often missing recycling routes.[1] To help authorities to maintain rivers as important economic transport routes numerical models are used to forecast possible pollution transportation after dredging or sediment re-location. To improve the precision of such models’ valid data related to the pollution partitioning behavior and constant validation is needed. Due to the common sampling technique of collecting SPM samples from sedimentation basins, obtained data is often pooled monthly. The lack of validated and discrete data for legacy pollutants, as well as TCEs in suspended particulate matter (SPM) raises the question: How changes the distribution of pollutants in SPM on a smaller timescale and is it possible to model these changes? Is the quantification of mass fractions of legacy pollutants and TCEs possible for SPM and is SPM a transport vehicle for pollutants in the river Elbe? This contribution provides current and discrete data for legacy pollutants and TCEs in Elbe River estuary SPM with a spatial distribution. The samples were collected on a sampling campaign with the research vessel Ludwig Prandtl in April 2023, prepared in the laboratory, digested following the protocol of Zimmermann et al. (2020) and measured via ICP-MS/MS.[2] The mass fractions for SPM range from level of quantification (LOQ) to 552 mg/kg for In and Zn, respectively. Overall measured mass fractions in SPM are significantly higher than the corresponding sediment samples. This highlights the importance of SMP as transport pathway especially when remobilization is possible due to changes in pH or salinity like in the tidal Elbe from Cuxhaven to Geesthacht. To support a precise modelling of pollutants in the Elbe catchment the data was used further to calculate KD values which are used as input parameters in various numerical models.
