123rd General Meeting of the KCS

Type Poster Presentation
Area Environmental Energy
Room No. Exhibition Hall 2
Time 4월 18일 (목요일) 11:00~12:30
Code ENVR.P-507
Subject IDENTIFICATION OF MAJOR SOURCES OF MONOMETHYLMERCURY IN LAKES AND RIVERS OF SOUTH KOREA BY MASS BUDGETS ESTIMATION
Authors Eunji Jung, Seunghee Han*
School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea
Abstract To identify main sources of monomethylmercury (MMHg) in lake and river water, mass budgets of MMHg were estimated for Okjeong and Boryoung Lakes, and Yeongsan and Geum Rivers using water, sediment and rainwater data collected in 2017 to 2018. The data variances of water quality parameters (e.g., pH, and concentrations of suspended particles, nitrate, sulfate and chlorophyll-a) and MMHg concentration were also analyzed by the principal component analysis (PCA), using surface water data collected from 2013 to 2018 from 16 lakes and 4 rivers. Among four main sources of MMHg (i.e., wet deposition, in-situ methylation, stream inflow and sediment diffusion), sediment diffusion was estimated as a major one for lake water and surface water inflow for river water. The PCA supports these mass balance results by showing that data variations of MMHg and pH are similar in the lake water loading plots, while the most robust positive correlation was found between MMHg and suspended particles in river water. Overall results suggest that the transport of MMHg along with allochthonous organic matter via stream discharge, and in-situ sediment methylation is a key process to increase MMHg concentration in lake and river, respectively.
E-mail ejjung11@gist.ac.kr