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The Pollution of the River Rhine with Heavy Metals

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Sediments and Environmental Geochemistry

Abstract

Since the early 1970s the heavy-metal content of the Rhine has gone down considerably. Especially the point sources have become less important. The background pollution counts are around 20% for Pb and Zn, > 20% for Hg and Cd, 40% for Cu, 50% for Cr, and 60% for Ni. As a third source diffuse pollution (rain, surface erosion, etc) plays a role especially with Zn, Cd, Pb. The analytical procedures for evaluating metal concentrations are in some cases no longer sensitive enough to control the very low metal content.

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© 1990 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Malle, KG. (1990). The Pollution of the River Rhine with Heavy Metals. In: Heling, D., Rothe, P., Förstner, U., Stoffers, P. (eds) Sediments and Environmental Geochemistry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75097-7_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75097-7_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-75099-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-75097-7

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