SEDiLINK · Sediment linkage between land, river and sea: evaluating impacts of historic mining on sediment quality in the coastal zone

Sediment linkage between land, river and sea: evaluating impacts of historic mining on sediment quality in the coastal zone

The overall goal of the “Sediment linkage between land, river and sea: evaluating impacts of historic mining on sediment quality in the coastal zone” (SEDiLINK) research project was to develop an innovative sedimentological approach to overcome challenges in management of legacy pollution to achieve the goals of the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive and Mining Waste Directive. Using the Tamar River Basin, southwest UK (with hundreds of mines in operation by the end of the 19th century), as a natural laboratory, the central Research and Innovation Objective was to develop an integrated multidisciplinary approach to test the hypothesis that estuarine saltmarshes (i) hold a sedimentary record of human impacts on the flux of sediment and contaminants from river basins to the coastal zone that can (ii) be used to contextualise the impact of mining and pollution mitigation strategies over the past two centuries and inform contemporary management decisions. With increased storminess and erosional events, such sedimentary storages would constitute a significant delayed source of pollutants into the local aquatic systems and Plymouth estuary. Three interlinked scientific objectives (Os) were undertaken to develop and demonstrate the SEDiLINK approach: (O1) Quantify changes in catchment sediment dynamics through time, from the 19th century period of major mining activity and pollution to contemporary industry and diffuse pollution from legacy mine deposits by high-resolution geochronological analysis of sediment cores. (O2) Evaluate anthropogenic impacts on sediment quality via key heavy metals (i.e. Pb, Cu, Zn, Sn, Cd) in conjunction with other proxies (e.g. grain size distribution, organic carbon (C), river flow data, historical flooding events) to identify changes in catchment hydrological drivers which can influence the heavy metal accumulation and sediment accretion. (O3) Build and integrate geochronological, geochemical, granulometric and stable isotope source apportionment approaches in a systematic and comprehensive way for the identification and quantification of historical source pollution in coastal ecosystems.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union