Impacts of Airborne Contamination on Regional Soil and Water Quality:  The Kola Peninsula, Russia

Abstract

Regional geochemical mapping of 188 000 km 2 in the European Arctic demonstrates that long-range atmospheric transport of heavy metal pollution from industrial emitters on the Kola Peninsula (nickel smelters, roasting plant, and refinery at Nikel, Zapoljarnij, and Monchegorsk, Russia) currently does not seem to present a major environmental threat on a regional scale, with the majority of heavy metal emissions being deposited as particulates near the sources. Furthermore, no regional impact of acid rain can, as yet, be observed in the distributions of pH, alkalinity, and sulfur in humus, mineral soils, or lake water. Large-scale natural phenomena (e.g., displacement of protons from the organic soil layer by input of marine cations) appear to be more important for the regional distribution of pH in humus and surface waters than input of sulfur (acid rain). The importance of documenting and understanding the regional significance and scale of geochemical processes before initiating environmental monitoring or detailed investigations on a very local (e.g., catchment) scale is underlined by these results. Emission of basic particles from industry seems to counteract to a large extent environmental acidification, and this should be taken into account when devising emission control procedures.