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Trace metal bioavailabilities in the Thames estuary: continuing decline in the 21st century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 December 2015
Abstract
Levels of pollution, including contamination by toxic metals, in the Thames estuary reduced over the last four decades of the 20th century. This 2014 study investigates whether the declines in the bioavailabilities of trace metals (Ag, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, V, Zn) have continued in the 21st century, using a suite of littoral biomonitors also employed in 2001 – the brown seaweed Fucus vesiculosus, the strandline, talitrid amphipod Orchestia gammarellus and the estuarine barnacle Amphibalanus improvisus. Bioaccumulated concentrations represent relative measures of the total bioavailabilities of each metal to the biomonitor over a previous time period, and can be compared over space and over time. Trace metal bioavailabilities varied along the estuary, and, in general, fell between 2001 and 2014, a reflection of the continuing remediation of the Thames estuary from its severely polluted state in the middle of the 20th century.
Keywords
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 96 , Issue 1: Oceans and Human Health , February 2016 , pp. 205 - 216
- Copyright
- Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 2015
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