Mercury in the Polish part of the Baltic Sea: A response to decreased atmospheric deposition and changing environment

Agnieszka Jędruch; Lucyna Falkowska; Dominika Saniewska; Agnieszka Grajewska; Magdalena Bełdowska; Włodzimierz Meissner; Elżbieta Kalisińska; Kazimierz Duzinkiewicz; Józef Pacyna

doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2022.114426

Mercury in the Polish part of the Baltic Sea: A response to decreased atmospheric deposition and changing environment

Abstract

Our review of the literature showed that since the beginning of the socio-economic transformation in Poland in the 1990s, the downward trend in Hg emissions and its deposition in the southern Baltic Sea was followed by a simultaneous decrease in Hg levels in water and marine plants and animals. Hg concentrations in the biota lowered to values that pose no or low risk to wildlife and seafood consumers. However, in the first decade of the current century, a divergence between these two trends became apparent and Hg concentrations in fish, herring and cod, began to rise. Therefore, increasing emission-independent anthropogenic pressures, which affect Hg uptake and trophodynamics, remobilization of land-based and marine legacy Hg deposits, as well as the structure of the food web, can undermine the chances of reducing both the Hg pool in the marine environment and human Hg exposure from fish.