This study presents a statistical comparison between the in situ measurements of the elemental composition of street dust and a forest health status classification derived from aerial hyperspectral ...image data (HyMap). Combining these two methods allowed us to indirectly pinpoint at a high spatial resolution the atmospheric dust emissions and its effects in a study area around the open-pit lignite mine in Sokolov, Czech Republic. The results reveal a statistically significant relationship between increased Al, Na, Li and Sr levels in street dust and decreased forest health status, and the highest number of statistically significant correlations within a 100 m distance from the street-dust sampling points. Differences in lithological composition were unable to sufficiently explain these changes, therefore anthropogenic factors like dust emissions from coal mining and coal combustion, as well as urbanisation and other industries might be the reason for this link. Such studies are a crucial step in developing new high spatial resolution methods for determining atmospheric dust deposition and their effects.
The Sava River is the longest river in Slovenia and has been subjected to pollution in the past. Fine-grained channel sediments, which were deposited during the high-water event in July 2009, along ...the river course in Slovenia were sampled at 12 locations in order to determine the content of a large set of chemical elements and assess possible levels of pollution. Sediment samples were air-dried. Two grain size fractions (<0.063 and <0.125 mm) were prepared for chemical analyses by dry sieving. Elemental levels of each sample were determined after aqua regia extraction (1 h, 95 °C) by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Elemental levels did not exceed the legislation action limit values, indicating that the Sava River recently deposited alluvial sediments are not contaminated with potentially toxic metals. The results show that the chemical composition of the Sava River sediments is comparable to the average composition of stream sediments within Europe. Some light impacts of anthropogenic activities and lithological-driven influential factors to the elemental composition of sediments were observed. Slight As enrichment is possibly a consequence of eroding of slag dumps and As-contaminated soil on Sava River banks and emissions from treated sewage waters. Lead (Pb) is increased in the Litija area as a consequence of historic mining and increased zinc (Zn) and cadmium (Cd) concentrations after the Savinja River confluence because of historic smelting industry in its catchment area. Phosphorous levels in sediments are very likely driven by the emissions from farming and urbanisation. Increased Ba and Pb levels (but still being below the action value) are detected in sample downstream Krško.
Resuspended street dust is a source of inhalable particles in urban environments. Despite contaminated street dust being a possible health risk factor for local population, little is known about the ...contribution of atmospheric dust emissions and other factors to the content of toxic metals in street dust. The impact of smelting, traffic, and power plants on metal contaminates in street dust is the focus of street dust sampling at 46 locations in the Witbank area (Republic of South Africa). This area is characterized by numerous open-pit coal mines in the Karoo coal basin, which provides a cheap source of energy to numerous metallurgical smelters and ironworks and supplies coal to the coal-fired power plants located nearby. Street dust was collected on asphalt or concrete surfaces with hard plastic brushes, avoiding collecting of possible sand, soil, or plant particles. Chemical analysis was done on the <0.125 mm fraction using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry subsequent to total digestion. Exceptionally high concentrations of metals were detected with concentrations of Fe reaching 17.7 %, Cr 4.3 %, Mn 2 %, Ni 366 mg/kg, and V 4,410 mg/kg. Factor analysis indicates three sources for the pollution. Road traffic which contributes to the high concentrations of Cu, Pb, Sb, and Sn, with the highest impacts detected in the town of Witbank. The second source is associated with the metal smelting industry, contributing to Fe, Co, Mn, and V emissions. The highest factor scores were observed around four metallurgical smelter operations, located in the Ferrobank, Highveld, and Clewer industrial areas. Impact of vanadium smelter to street dust composition could still be detected some 20 km away from the sources. Exceptionally high concentrations of Cr were observed in four samples collected next to the Ferrobank industrial area, despite Cr not being loaded in factor 2. The last source of the pollution is most probably fly ash associated with the coal-fired power plants and fly ash dumps. Elements which are associated with this source are Al, Sr, and Li. This factor is abundant in the coal mining part of the study area.
The bottleneck in the process for increasing production of low CO2 mineral binders, based on BCSA (belite sulfoaluminate) clinkers, is the availability of Al-rich raw materials. For that purpose, a ...new registry of Al-containing secondary mineral residues (industrial and mine waste) has been developed and is presented in this paper. The methodology of creating the registry consists of three main steps: Gathering ideas, consolidation of ideas, and implementation. In order to achieve this, the following methodology was adopted: Analysis of similar registries by potential end-users and seeking potential solutions and tools to be used, and conducting 3 rounds of stakeholder consultations via workshops in order to determine crucial parameters and features the registry needs to contain. The key discussion points were about which data the registry needs to contain, who shall be the potential users, and what are the stakeholder’s expectations from the registry’s portal. Potential individual registry variables were identified as being relevant/irrelevant or available/unavailable, and potential solutions for the registry’s sustainability were explored. Each Al-rich waste/residue data entry is divided into 10 slots, describing legal status, location, quantities, chemical (REE included), mineralogical, physical and radiological properties, life-cycle assessment, additional data, and data relevancy. The registry will act as a matchmaking tool between producers/holders of Al-rich secondary raw materials and potential producers of cement clinkers.
We examined the national mine waste registries from seven European countries, created to fulfil the requirements of the “Mine Waste Directive” (2006/21/EC), for their potential use as an initial ...source of information for the valorisation of specific mine waste deposits for their resource recovery. A set of parameters for mine waste valorisation was defined and divided into three groups: the “basic”, the “metal-centric” and the “material-centric” group. The “basic” group of 19 parameters considers properties of the mine waste deposit, including the location, history, homogeneity and quantity, among others, while the other two groups relate to the two desired material recovery types. The “metal-centric” group of parameters contains the six parameters needed to preliminarily assess the potential to valorise mine waste for metal extraction, while the “material-centric” group contains the nine parameters needed to consider the use of mine waste for the production of different construction materials. National mine waste registries from Slovenia, France, Spain, Italy, UK, Hungary and Portugal were reviewed to determine whether they contain information about each of the parameters. In line with the objectives of the Mine Waste Directive, the national mine waste registries were developed to reduce or prevent environmental damage, and not to enable resource recovery from mine waste. The registries contain most of the information for the parameters in the “basic” group, less information for the parameters in the “metal-centric” group and almost no information to define the parameters in the “material-centric” group. The conclusion is that national mine waste registries could serve only as an initial source of information, and more detailed information must be obtained from other sources. This misses an opportunity to see these sites as a resource, and not only as a potential source of pollution, given the urgent need to find alternative stocks of metals within the EU (European Union).
This article presents the impact of the ecological investment in ironworks (dust filter installation) and construction works at a highly contaminated brownfield site on the chemical composition of ...household dust (HD) and street sediment (SS) in Celje, Slovenia. The evaluation is based on two sampling campaigns: the first was undertaken 1 month before the ecological investment became operational and the second 3 years later. The results show that dust filter installations reduced the content of Co, Cr, Fe, Mn, Mo, W and Zn on average by 58% in HD and by 51% in SS. No reduction was observed at sampling points in the upwind direction from the ironworks. By contrast, the impact of the construction works on the highly contaminated brownfield site was detected by a significant increase (on average by 37%) of elements connected to the brownfield contamination in SS. Such increase was not detected in HD.
The influence of geomorphological factors to Hg contamination of the Idrijca River alluvial sediments because of the historical mining and ore roasting activities has been studied. Main source of Hg ...in alluvial sediments was dumping of ore roasting residues and mining waste into the river channel and its erosion downstream. The position of the material in relation to the geomorphological properties is highly related with its Hg content. Floodplains were found to be the most contaminated geomorphological units (mean Hg content 335
mg/kg), with Hg concentration rapidly dropping in the first terrace (155
mg/kg). The least contaminated material was found in the higher terraces (3.8
mg/kg). Sampling upstream Idrija (average Hg content is 22.1
mg/kg) shows that not only mine and ore roasting plant increased Hg levels in alluvial deposits but also contaminated sites upstream Idrija contribute to Hg contamination. Geochemical background for alluvial sediments for this area is estimated to be 0.75
mg/kg. Downstream Idrija, 9 hotspots were determined where highly contaminated material is actively eroded and carries a high risk of further contamination of the Soča River and northern Adriatic Sea ecosystems.
► Hg contamination of alluvial sediment because of mining tradition in Idrija. ► High rate of contamination, up to 2000
mg/kg, enrichment factors up to 15,000. ► Floodplain most contaminated geomorphological unit. ► Exponential decrease of contamination in relation to the distance from the source. ► Geochemical background for Hg in alluvial sediments estimated to 0.75
mg/kg.
An assessment of the relationship between displacement rates of objects located in areas of active soil creep and rainfall intensities was performed using a permanent-scatterer technique of synthetic ...aperture radar interferometry. The study focussed on two areas in central Slovenia during the period between April 1992 and December 2000. Based on field assessments, six permanent scatterers for one area and 11 scatterers for the other were selected for analysis from >4300 available permanent scatterers. Displacement rates related to creeping processes were compared with the different durations and intensities of rain in order to assess the threshold values that initiate the creeping process and to assess the relationship between the speed of the movement and the precipitation events. Although the permanent scatterer displacement data contain much noise, our results indicate that soil creep is induced by 20mm of rain in 1day or 50mm of rain in 3days, causing an average elevation decrease of 0.5 and 1mm, respectively. The elevation decreases due to soil creep were observed as instantaneous events, since no increased correlations were observed when a time lag between precipitation and displacement was taken into account. Models developed in this research indicated very similar rates of tectonic uplift for the two research areas in the event of no rain, and these rates were found to be faster than the regional tectonic uplift. This suggests that areas with high rates of tectonic uplift and areas of active soil creep may be related.
► Soil creeping and daily rainfall measurements have been analysed for correlations. ► PSInSAR measurements were used for assessing of terrain displacements. ► Rainfall with an intensity of 20mmday−1 or more are the major triggering factor. ► Precipitation event produces soil creeping without delay. ► Rapid tectonic uplift might be an important factor at soil creeping areas.
Two approaches, factor analysis (FA) and self-organising maps (SOM), have been used for the determination of geochemical associations in the two case studies evaluated here. In both case studies, ...different associations of elements, derived from different anthropogenic sources (smelters, ironworks, and chemical industry), are presented, together with natural associations of elements, all representing different geological environments. FA and SOM give similar results, despite some differences. Most similarities were achieved with the group of elements affected by strong pollution caused by smelting activities. The biggest difference between the two is that SOM can combine different groups into one, especially in the case of associations of elements connected with mild pollution (ironworking, chemical industry). The biggest advantage of SOM as opposed to FA is that SOM allow us to process variables, which are not normally distributed, or even of attributive nature. The use of such variables in SOM classification to prove the origins of associations of elements is also demonstrated here.
Determination of the origin of heavy metals in the household dust and street sediment in a previously heavily contaminated area was carried out. The main question addressed was the origin of heavy ...metals in dry and wet air deposits measured in the environmental monitoring programme of the community of Celje. There are two possible sources: present atmospheric emissions by industries in Celje and dusting of previously heavily contaminated soil. Determination of the present emissions was done on the basis of a method based on enrichment factor calculations. Samples of soil, street sediment and household dust in the contaminated area and in a non-contaminated sampling point were analysed. Expected heavy metal concentrations in household dust and street sediment in the previously heavily polluted area according to the level of measured soil contamination were calculated. Expected and measured values were compared to detect possible present atmospheric emissions. The data show higher enrichment with elements related to ironworking activities (Fe, Co, Cr, Mn, Ni) in household dust and street sediment, according to the concentrations in the soil in the vicinity of ironworks in comparison to the reference point. Similar observations can be made at the sampling point, east of a factory producing TiO
2
-based white pigment for Ti, because emissions from it are expected. In contrast, the same trend is not observed for elements related to pollution problems in Celje (Cd, Zn, Pb). This indicated that street sediment and household dust might be a good tracer of present atmospheric emissions, despite the fact that the environment was previously highly contaminated. The method yields good results, which fit very well with expectations.
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