"Fingerprints" Approach to the Identification of Anthropogenic Trace Metal Sources in the Nearshore and Estuarine Environments

Abstract

The problem of source identification of anthropogenic pollutants in a local marine environment has been intensively studied during the last two decades. Recently we have started intensively using an approach, called by us the “fingerprints” approach, for tracing anthropogenic pollutant sources and for the description of various geochemical and chemical processes related to contamination by anthropogenic heavy metals in the marine environment. This approach was based on the assumption that if anthropogenic pollutants for any particular area had originated from the same source, then the pairwise relationships between the concentrations of these pollutants in sediments from various stations in the contaminated area would be linear. The discussed approach was applied to the case study of heavy metal contamination of the estuarine environment of the Kishon River (Israel). The “fingerprints” approach can be successfully used for source contamination assessments even when there is significant trace metal fractionation or sediment fractionation in an area under study. However, in these cases this approach should be applied to each sediment fraction separately. The distribution of various heavy metal “fingerprints” for sediments from the case study of the Kishon River estuary and from the marine area close to the estuary have been used for the explanation of heavy metal redistribution on Kishon sediments consisting of a high fraction of anthropogenic fluorite after the contact of these sediments with seawater.