Hg - A serious environmental problem that tends to be overlooked
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The fish in more than half of Sweden´s 100,000 lakes contains levels of mercury that make them unsuitable for human consumption. Most are in forested regions far from all sources of pollution. This is a serious environmental problem that tends to be overlooked, according to Kevin Bishop, who wants to study the mercury puzzle as part of the recently established Future Forests´ research programme.No one can explain why mercury is distributed the way it is in Sweden. Recent research has, however, shown that clear-felling often increases the mercury burden on nearby lakes and waterways. Hundreds of years of billowing industrial smokestacks and the long-range transport of air pollutants have doubled or tripled mercury levels in the top layer of forest soil.
When the soil is disturbed or the groundwater level changes, it can cause old environmental misdeeds to resurface. The mercury becomes mobile. The pattern is difficult to follow though.
Sometimes there can be large releases of mercury, and at other times very little. One of the
key research tasks is therefore to find out what type of soil is most sensitive. With a better understanding of the factors that affect mercury leakage, it should be possible to adapt forestry
methods so as limit the burden on lakes and waterways.
“As much as a quarter of the mercury found in freshwater fish is related to forest harvest," says Kevin Bishop, professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SLU. “I believe it is important that we try to find out what we can do to mitigate this problem."
Contact:
Kevin Bishop, +46 (0)18 67 31 31, +46 (0)70 638 25 17, kevin.bishop@vatten.slu.se
