Baseline
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the Baltic Sea — Pre-industrial and industrial developments as well as current status

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111526Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Millennial and decadal PAH developments using sediment deposits and seawater data

  • PAH composition shifted towards high molecular weight PAH.

  • Current sediment PAH contents are one order of magnitude above natural background.

  • Traffic derived PAHs continuously contribute to Baltic Sea PAH profile.

  • Medium to high toxicological risk might arise from current PAH contents.

Abstract

We report on Baltic Sea polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) pressure based on the U.S. EPA PAHs in view of millennial and decadal developments utilizing data from sediment deposits and seawater. Pre-industrial PAH contents ranged from 500 to 4500 ng/g TOC. Maximum PAH contents were up to 100,000 ng/g TOC and date back to the 1960s to 1970s with maximum pollutant inputs. Contemporary sediment PAH contents with 10,000 to 35,000 ng/g TOC and seawater concentrations with about 1 to 16 ng/l show spatial variability due to different local inputs and sediment characteristics. Pre-industrial compositional change from low molecular weight to high molecular weight (HMW) PAH indicates changing sources from mostly petroleum to combustion. Application of diagnostic ratios reveals petroleum and combustion as contemporary PAH sources and that traffic emissions continuously contribute to the Baltic PAH profile. Medium to high toxicological risk to the marine community might arise from current HMW PAH contents.

Section snippets

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Marion Kanwischer: Conceptualization, Writing-Original draft preparation, Writing-Reviewing and Editing, Visualization.

Dennis Bunke: Validation, Writing-Reviewing and Editing.

Thomas Leipe: Validation, Writing-Reviewing and Editing.

Matthias Moros: Validation, Writing-Reviewing and Editing.

Detlef E. Schulz-Bull: Supervision, Investigation, Writing-Reviewing and Editing.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency and the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde. The authors are grateful to Andrea Tschakste, Ines Hand, Jenny Jeschek, Erika Trost, Astrid Lerz, Julian Schade and Dirk Wodarg for technical support during sampling, sample preparation and analysis and to the crews of the research vessels “Elisabeth Mann Borgese”, “Alexander v. Humboldt”, “Alkor”, “Poseidon” and “Professor Albrecht Penck”.

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