Quantifying missing annual emission sources of heavy metals in the United Kingdom with an atmospheric transport model

Dore, Anthony J.; Hallsworth, Stephen; McDonald, Alan G.; Werner, Malgorzata; Kryza, Maciej; Abbott, John; Nemitz, Eiko ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1765-6298; Dore, Christopher J.; Malcolm, Heath; Vieno, Massimo ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7741-9377; Reis, Stefan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2428-8320; Fowler, David. 2014 Quantifying missing annual emission sources of heavy metals in the United Kingdom with an atmospheric transport model. Science of the Total Environment, 479-480. 171-180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.02.001

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Abstract/Summary

An atmospheric chemical transport model was adapted to simulate the concentration and deposition of heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel, selenium, vanadium, and zinc) in the United Kingdom. The model showed that wet deposition was the most important process for the transfer of metals from the atmosphere to land surface. The model achieved a good correlation with annually averaged measurements of metal concentrations in air. The correlation with measurements of wet deposition was less strong due to the complexity of the atmospheric processes involved in the washout of particulate matter which were not fully captured by the model. The measured wet deposition and air concentration of heavy metals were significantly underestimated by the model for all metals (except vanadium) by factors of between 2 and 10. These results suggest major missing sources of annual heavy metal emissions which are currently not included in the official inventory. Primary emissions were able to account for only 9%, 21%, 29%, 21%, 36%, 7% and 23% of the measured concentrations for As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn. A likely additional contribution to atmospheric heavy metal concentrations is the wind driven re-suspension of surface dust still present in the environment from the legacy of much higher historic emissions. Inclusion of two independent estimates of emissions from re-suspension in the model was found to give improved agreement with measurements. However accurate estimate of the magnitude of re-suspended emissions is restricted by the lack of measurements of metal concentrations in the re-suspended surface dust layer.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.02.001
Programmes:	CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Biogeochemistry > BGC Topic 2 - Biogeochemistry and Climate System Processes > BGC - 2.1 - Quantify & model processes that control the emission, fate and bioavailability of pollutants
UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:	Dise
ISSN:	0048-9697
Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:	Open Access paper - Official URL link provides full text
Additional Keywords:	FRAME, re-suspension, lead, cadmium, atmospheric transport model, heavy metals
NORA Subject Terms:	Atmospheric Sciences
Date made live:	20 Mar 2014 14:06 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/506306

Item Type:

Publication - Article

Digital Object Identifier (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.02.001

Programmes:

CEH Topics & Objectives 2009 - 2012 > Biogeochemistry > BGC Topic 2 - Biogeochemistry and Climate System Processes > BGC - 2.1 - Quantify & model processes that control the emission, fate and bioavailability of pollutants

UKCEH and CEH Sections/Science Areas:

Dise

ISSN:

0048-9697

Additional Information. Not used in RCUK Gateway to Research.:

Open Access paper - Official URL link provides full text