LONG-TERM VARIABILITY IN THE CONTENT OF MERCURY COMPOUNDS IN RIVER ECOSYSTEMS OF RUSSIA ACCORDING TO MONITORING DATA  

O.S. Reshetnyak ^1,2

¹Hydrochemical Institute, Roshydromet Federal Service, ul. Stachki, 198, Rostov-on-Don, 344090 Russia

²Institute of Geosciences, Southern Federal University, ul. Zorge, 40, Rostov-on-Don, 344090 Russia

E-mail: olgare1@mail.ru

The article considers the problem of global mercury pollution of the environment, sources, forms of occurrence and features of mercury migration. Mercury compounds are included in the list of priority substances. Due to global transport processes, mercury compounds are found in almost all media of unpolluted natural ecosystems located all over the world. The objects of research are river ecosystems of various terrestrial ecosystems and altitudinal zones of Russia. The subject of research is the content of mercury compounds in the river waters of Russia. The objective of the study is to reveal the spatial variability in the content of mercury compounds in river ecosystems over the past years. The long-term (1990-2014) regime hydrochemical data of the Roshydromet were used in this study. The long-term variability of the mercury compounds content is shown. The variability in mercury compounds content in river waters of different regions of Russia is presented according to the reference data and data from the regular monitoring of Roshydromet. A high heterogeneity of mercury compounds content in river water has been revealed. The content of mercury compounds varies widely from the values below the detection limit to 16.8 μg/dm³ in tundra and forest-tundra ecosystems, 1.62 μg/dm³ in taiga ecosystems, 0.184 μg/dm³ in mixed and hardwood forests, 3.15 μg/dm3 in forest-steppe ecosystems and up to 0.40 μg/dm³ in steppes, semi-deserts and deserts. The abnormally highest concentrations were noted in some placres. When comparing long-term data with background levels of mercury in natural water, excesses are observed only for the anomalous values of concentrations. The median values of mercury concentrations in river water for the most part are below the detection limit. There is a danger of mercury pollution of river ecosystems due to its accumulation in ecosystems in the current circumstances of anthropogenic impact and unstable climatic changes. It is necessary to pay special attention to studying the dynamics of mercury content in river waters to prevent

Key words: mercury compounds, river ecosystems, natural areas, multiplicity of exceeding MPC, extremely high level of water pollution

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