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Winter arsenic pollution in 10 forest ecosystems in the mountainous border regions of the Czech Republic

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Abstract

Arsenic (As) concentrations and deposition fluxes were measured in snow and rime at 10 mountain-top sites near the borders between the Czech Republic and Austria, Germany, Poland, and Slovakia during three consecutive winter seasons (2009–2011). Our study was performed at a time following several decades of sharply decreasing regional atmospheric pollution and following the 2006 implementation of stricter air quality standards across Europe. Our objective was to compare vertical and horizontal depositions of soluble and insoluble As forms throughout the Czech Republic and define a recent Central European As pollution gradient. Arsenic soluble in weak nitric acid contributed 83 to 85% to the total As deposition, with the remaining 17–15% bound to stable particulate forms. The highest As deposition rates were recorded in the eastern Czech Republic near the borders with Poland and Slovakia. Complementary hydrochemical monitoring in four mountain-slope catchments situated near selected main study sites revealed a further decrease in open-area As deposition by the end of 2018 in the east of the country. In contrast, spruce canopy throughfall flux did not change significantly between 2009–2011 and 2016–2018. The site-specific relative roles of coal-burning-derived and ore-smelting-derived atmospheric As are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Barbora Doušová and Pavel Krám for the insightful discussions and suggestions to improve an earlier version of this manuscript. Two anonymous reviewers provided helpful insight that resulted in substantial refinement and improvement of this manuscript. We also thank the editorial input of Gerhard Lammel.

Funding

This work is a contribution to the Strategic Research Plan of the Czech Geological Survey (DKRVO/ČGS 2018–2022). This study was funded by The Czech Geological Survey (grant numbers 33800 and 310470).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Geochemistry and Biogeochemistry, Czech Geological Survey, Geologicka 6, 152 00, Prague 5, Czech Republic

    Daniel A. Petrash, Martin Novák, Leona Bohdálková, Jan Čuřík, František Veselovský, Markéta Štěpánová & Eva Přechová

  2. Soil and Water Research Infrastrucutre, Biology Centre, Czech Academy of Sciences, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic

    Daniel A. Petrash & Karelys Umbría-Salinas

  3. European Commission, Joint Research Centre Karlsruhe, P.O. Box 2340, 76125, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Micheal Krachler

  4. Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Sokolovska 49, 186 75, Prague 8, Czech Republic

    Arnost Komárek

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  1. Daniel A. Petrash
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  2. Martin Novák
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Contributions

Daniel Petrash: formal analysis; writing—original draft, review and editing; investigation, visualization. Leona Bohdálková: writing—original draft, validation. Martin Novák: conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition, supervision. Michael Krachler: validation, resources. František Veselovský and Jan Čuřík: methodology. Arnost Komárek, Markéta Štěpánová, and Karelys Umbría-Salinas: formal analysis. Eva Přechová: project administration.

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Petrash, D.A., Novák, M., Bohdálková, L. et al. Winter arsenic pollution in 10 forest ecosystems in the mountainous border regions of the Czech Republic. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 16107–16121 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11738-4

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