Abstract
The direct impacts of anthropogenic pollution are widely known public and environmental health concerns, and details on the indirect impact of these are starting to emerge, for example affecting the environmental microbiome. Anthropogenic activities throughout history with associated pollution burdens are notable contributors. Focusing on the historically heavily industrialised River Clyde, Scotland, we investigate spatial and temporal contributions to stressful/hostile environments using a geochemical framework, e.g. pH, EC, total organic carbon and potentially toxic elements: As, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn and enrichment indicators. With regular breaches of the sediment quality standards in the estuarine system we focused on PTE correlations instead. Multivariate statistical analysis (principle component analysis) identifies two dominant components, PC1: As, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn, as well as PC2: Ni, Co and total organic carbon. Our assessment confirms hot spots in the Clyde Estuary indicative of localised inputs. In addition, there are sites with high variability indicative of excessive mixing. We demonstrate that industrialised areas are dynamic environmental sites dependant on historical anthropogenic activity with short-scale variation. This work supports the development of ‘contamination’ mapping to enable an assessment of the impact of historical anthropogenic pollution, identifying specific ‘stressors’ that can impact the microbiome, neglecting in estuarine recovery dynamics and potentially supporting the emergence of antimicrobial resistance in the environment.
Highlights
The direct impacts of anthropogenic pollution are widely known public and environmental health concerns, and details on the indirect impact of these are starting to emerge, for example affecting the environmental microbiome
Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS, with data tested for normal distribution using Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Shapiro–Wilk tests; PTE concentrations were logtransformed for analysis of variance (ANOVA) and principal component analysis (PCA)
Cn 1:5Bn where Cn is the concentration of the metal of interest in sediment sample, Bn is the background level of the same metal, and 1.5 is the factor to minimise the effect of possible variations in the background (Al-Haidarey et al 2010; Okedeyi et al 2014; Hasan et al 2013)
Summary
The direct impacts of anthropogenic pollution are widely known public and environmental health concerns, and details on the indirect impact of these are starting to emerge, for example affecting the environmental microbiome. The river has received pollution from the onset of the Industrial Revolution (eighteenth century) to the present day, changing with urban and industrial development in its catchment (Vane et al 2007, 2010; Edgar et al 2006) Metals such as As, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn (and other potentially toxic elements— PTEs) can be linked to anthropogenic and natural inputs (Caccia et al 2003; Rodriguez-Iruretagoiena et al 2016; Birch et al 2015; Lenart-Boronand Boron 2014) which are managed through a range of regulatory instruments, e.g. Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC)(Cuculicet al. The bioavailability and environmental influence of these pollutants depend on Environ Geochem Health (2020) 42:1057–1068 many processes such as (i) mobilisation in interstitial water, (ii) chemical species, (iii) transformation, e.g. methylation, (iv) sediment composition, e.g. oxides of Fe and organic matter, (v) competition with other metals for complexation, (vi) spatial distribution and (vii) influence of bioturbation, salinity, redox or pH on these processes (Bryan and Langston 1992; Weil and Brady 2016; Peng et al 2008; Konhausera et al 2002; Akcil et al 2015; Zaaboub et al 2015; Caccia et al 2003; Berner and Berner 2012; Petit et al 2015)
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