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Article  in  Ecological Modelling · February 2001

DOI: 10.1016/S0304-3800(00)00440-3

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HEAVY METAL SEDIMENT LOAD FROM THE CITY OF STOCKHOLM

M. LINDSTRÖM1 , A. JONSSON2 , A. A. BROLIN1∗ and L. HÅKANSON1

1 Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden; 2 Department of Water and
Environmental Studies, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
(∗ author for correspondence, e-mail: Angelica.Brolin@geo.uu.se; fax: +46 18 4712737)

(Received 20 April 1999; accepted 21 September 2000)

Abstract. A transect of upstream lake sites and downstream coastal sites surrounding the city of
Stockholm, capital of Sweden, were investigated for heavy metals in sediments. Concentrations of
Cd, Cu, Hg, Pb and Zn increased close to the city. In the most central areas of Stockholm, sediment
deposition was increased about 5-fold for Cd, Cu, Hg and Pb and 3-fold for Zn, as compared to the
surrounding areas. The sediment load from the city was estimated by correcting for a background
concentration. It can be concluded that most of the load of Hg and Pb was trapped in the sediments
close to the city while Ni, Cu, Cd and Zn to a higher degree were transported through the archipelago
towards the Baltic Sea.

Keywords: contamination, fluxes, metals, sediments, urban area

1. Introduction

The main hydrodynamical pattern of the Stockholm area is characterised by the

througflow of Lake Mälaren (area 1140 km2 ; catchment area 22603 km2 ), which
in the central city enters the estuarine-like archipelago of the brackish Baltic Sea.
The mixing of fresh water with brackish water creates an interesting environment
for heavy metal distribution and sedimentation. Rapid changes in salinity, pH and
other water chemical variables influence the distribution of heavy metals between
the particulate and dissolved phases (Salomons and Förstner, 1984; Louma, 1990).
Among the highest metal concentrations in Sweden have been observed in the
surface sediments of the innermost Stockholm archipelago, rapidly declining east
of the city (Bergbäck and Johansson, 1996; Blomqvist and Larsson, 1996).
Prior to this study others have studied heavy metals in different parts of the
Stockholm water system, but no one has studied a transect covering the entire
Stockholm system. Broman et al. (1994) showed decreasing heavy metal concen-
trations in settling material sampled from sediment traps along a transect through
the Stockholm archipelago, indicating local anthropogenic input of at least Cu, Hg,
Pb and Cd. Sternbeck and Östlund (2000) and Östlund et al. (1998) interestingly
showed lower metal concentrations in the surface sediment layers of the most
central areas of Stockholm compared to deeper (older) sediment layers.
Deep areas of lakes and archipelagos generally consist of soft sediments onto
which heavy metals accumulate through a continuos settling flux (Håkanson and

Water, Air, and Soil Pollution: Focus 1: 103–118, 2001.

© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
104 M. LINDSTRÖM ET AL.

Jansson, 1983). To be able to estimate the total sediment load, this study uses, for
the first time in this area, sediment echosounder and sonar to acoustically map the
areas of sediment accumulation (A-areas).
This paper presents new results from a study of the heavy metal concentra-
tions and calculations of fluxes for major parts of the Stockholm water system and
discusses the influence on the fluxes, especially from the city of Stockholm. The
primary aim of the work is to assess annual heavy metal sediment loads in a way
which makes it possible to compare these fluxes with estimations of diffuse urban
fluxes, calculated from other investigations.

2. Material and Methods

2.1. S TUDY AREAS

Figure 1 shows a map of the study area. There is an easterly main flow pattern,
through Lake Mälaren and the archipelago, towards the Baltic. More than 75%
of the water from Lake Mälaren flows via one main stream. There are also some
minor streams and two locks in Stockholm with an average water level difference
of 0.6 m. The water discharge from Lake Mälaren is about 120 m3 /s as an annual
average (Lännergren and Värnhed, 1996). In this study, the Stockholm archipelago
area and the most easterly parts of Lake Mälaren have been divided into 14 sub-
areas, mainly along a transect, to investigate the heavy metal load on the sediments
(see Figure 1).
Average salinity and other basic data of the investigated sub-areas are given in
Table I. A certain degree of variability must be expected in these water data but this
is not shown here since this table is only meant to give background information
on the area characteristics. Relatively high salinities far into the archipelago can
be noted. The hydrodynamical flow pattern of the inner archipelago is not well
investigated but the salinity gradients suggest that there is a main outward flow of
surface water which gradually mixes with an inward flow of deeper more saline
water. There is no tidal influence. The salinity of the Northern Baltic proper is
approximately 6
, dropping to 1–4
in the innermost areas of this archipelago.
The central sub-areas receive storm water as well as effluent water from four water
treatment plants (approx. 1.3 million person equivalents to the inner archipelago),
which supply large parts of the total N and P loads (Lännergren and Värnhed,
1996).

2.2. S EDIMENT SAMPLING AND ANALYSES

During two sampling cruises (August 1997 and June 1998), five to seven A-area
sediment samples, from each of the defined sub-areas, were collected using a Gem-
ini gravity sediment corer (Niemistö, 1974). Only relatively undisturbed cores were
accepted and sliced immediately after retrival (1 cm slices) using a piston device,
 HEAVY METAL SEDIMENT LOAD FROM THE CITY OF STOCKHOLM 105

Figure 1. Location map of the study areas. The transect along the main watercourse through Stock-
holm has been divided into 14 sub-areas, A-G in Lake Mälaren and 1–7 in the Stockholm archipelago.
The central areas of the Stockholm city mainly surround sub-areas C, D, E, F and 1.

and then transferred into pre-weighted polypropene containers which were frozen
on-board.
In the laboratory, the samples were oven-dried (105 ◦ C) for 20 h or freeze-
dried for three days, to constant weight, and the water content (W) was determined.
The difference between oven and freeze-drying has been tested and found to be
negligible for these sediments. A subsample (< 0.5 g d.w.) was ashed at 550 ◦ C for
2 h, to determine the loss on ignition (LOI), according to standard procedures (see
Håkanson and Jansson, 1983). In the Stockholm area there is generally a peak in
137
Cs activity in the sediments from the nuclear accident in Chernobyl in April/May
of 1986. Two or three cores per sub-area were dated using 137 Cs (see, e.g., Meili et
al., 1998).
For the metal analyses less than 0.5 grams of freeze-dried sediments, or a cor-
responding amount of wet sediments, were digested in 20 ml of 7 M nitric acid at
120 ◦ C for 30 minutes (according to Swedish Standard SS028150). The digested
sample was diluted to 50 ml with milli-Q water. The sediment was left to settle and
the supernatant was transferred to acid washed plastic test tubes. The heavy metal
concentrations (Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb and Zn) of the samples were determined
using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The instrument
used is an Elan 6000. In order to adjust the acidity and the metal concentration
of the samples, they were diluted ten times or more prior to analysis. Rhodium
was used as an internal standard for all elements in the sediment analyses. The
106 M. LINDSTRÖM ET AL.

results were confirmed by analysing a series of different digestions of a certified

reference sediment (NRC PACS-2) in the same way. The average Cu, Hg, Pb and
Zn concentrations were within the certified 95% confidence interval (CI), and Cd
was on the upper limit of the CI. For Cr and Ni the recoveries were 55% and 82%,
respectively, which is explanied by the fact that the certification was based on total
digestions. The coefficients of variation (CV = standard deviation/mean value) for
the series of the different digestions for all metals were less than 0.13, indicating
an acceptable precision.
The bottom dynamic conditions were determined using a side scanning sonar
(EG & G Environmental Equipped model 260 Image Correcting Side Scan Sonar,
with a 272-TD-Saf-T-Link tow Fish, using 100 kHz and a range of 100-200 m)
combined with a sediment echosounder (O.R.E. Geopulser pinger using 14 kHz).
Soft sediment areas with continuos sediment accumulation (A-areas) were differ-
entiated from areas of erosion- and transportation (ET-areas) using this equip-
ment combined with analyses of sediment water content (Håkanson and Jans-
son, 1983). Morphometric variables were calculated using digitised 1:25000 and
1:50000 charts (according to Pilesjö et al., 1991). The information obtained from
the echosoundings and sonar scannings was also used to select the sediment samp-
ling sites.
The sedimentation increases with water depth, from zero at the wave base to
a maximum in the deepest areas. Since the sediment cores are from deep areas
calculated sedimentation has to be corrected for this. The correction factor mean-
/maximum- water depth, which accounts for the shape of each sub-area, is used
(Håkanson, 1999). The basin of an area with a high correction factor is U-shaped
and the deep cores are more representative of the bottom conditions than in an area
with a low correction factor and a more funnel shaped hypsographic curve. For the
error estimation, minimum and maximum values of A-areas and the sedimentation
correction were used. Minimum A-area is given in Table I, and for maximum,
10%-units were added; mean-/max- depth was used as minimum correction factor
and it was doubled for the maximum estimation. Mean values of the respective
variables were used for the calculation of the mean sediment deposition. Average
annual deposition of heavy metals in each sub-area was determined by multiplying
surface sediment (0–2 cm) metal concentrations (µg/g ds) with mean sediment
deposition rates (g ds/m2 y) from the dated cores and areas of A-areas (m2 ).

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. M ETAL CONCENTRATIONS

Table I presents basic data of the study sub-areas and Table II the results of the
sediment analyses. Within the sub-areas, the CV for the concentrations is 0.26 as
an average for all metals. Hg shows the largest variability with a mean CV of
 TABLE I
Background data of the investigation sub-areas. Area, accumulation area (% of total area), maximum depth (Dmax), water volume (V)
and basic water chemistry (mean values of surface and deep water during 1997 in the archipelago and 1998 in Lake Mälaren), total
organic carbon (TOC), surface water salinity (Sal, s), deep water salinity (Sal, d), pH and deep water oxygen concentration (O2 )

Sub-area (name) Area A-area Dmax V TOC Sal, s Sal, d pH O2

(km2 ) (%) (m) (Mm3 ) (mg l−1 ) (
) (
) (–) (mg l−1 )

A (Lambarfjärden) 38.7 34 53 411 8.0 – – 7.17 10.7

B (Kyrkfj.) 22.0 22 22 116 6.9 – – 6.73 10.8
G (E Ekerö, Fiskarfj.) 12.2 20 25 68.7 7.1 – – 7.11 10.5
C (Klubben, Smedslätten) 3.8 42 36 48.1 7.3 – – 7.11 9.9
E (Ulvsundasjön) 2.6 27 22 19.7 7.6 – – 7.50 11.1
F (Årstaviken) 1.3 21 10 7.2 3.7 – – 7.85 10.4
D (Riddarfj.) 2.4 48 27 27.7 7.5 – – 7.49 11.2
1 (Saltsjön) 3.5 38 37 48.2 6.2 1.3 4.5 7.14 6.8
2 (La Värtan) 14.4 42 54 224 6.1 2.5 4.2 7.27 7.7
3 (N Värmdölandet) 39.1 30 59 552 5.7 2.9 4.3 7.31 10.1
5 (Solö- and Torsbyfj.) 19.8 59 47 312 5.6 3.2 4.6 7.15 10.6
4 (Vaxholmsfj.) 9.9 23 29 94.6 6.1 3.2 3.5 7.37 7.9
6 (Trälhavet) 20.8 24 64 352 5.4 4.0 4.8 7.39 10.5
HEAVY METAL SEDIMENT LOAD FROM THE CITY OF STOCKHOLM

7 (V Saxarfj.) 15.8 30 59 410 4.4 4.4 4.9 7.30 12.6

107
108 M. LINDSTRÖM ET AL.

0.47, and Ni and Zn the lowest with CVs of 0.19. Along the main watercourse,
Ni shows slightly decreasing concentrations in surface sediment in the central sub-
areas. The other metal concentrations increase in the central sub-areas (G to D) and
are generally highest in the innermost archipelago, sub-area 1.
Characteristic water retention time (T) is an important factor determining the
retention of a metal load within a lake basin (Håkanson and Peters, 1995). The
entire eastern Lake Mälaren has a retention time of about 0.2 years (Persson, 1991).
Most metal concentrations are higher in sub-areas E and F than in sub-areas C and
D, probably due to a high degree of urban runoff and also because they are not
along the main water course and have longer water retention times. Water retention
times for coastal areas of the Baltic Sea are governed by different processes and
may be predicted by models described by Persson and Håkanson (1994; 1996).
These models were, however, derived for non-estuarine areas, and for the innermost
sub-areas the predictions must be regarded as rough conservative estimates, and the
water flow due to the lake outflow should be added. Surface water retention times
predicted according to these models are in the order of 1-15 days for these areas.

3.2. S EDIMENT DEPOSITION

In Figure 2, the vertical sediment profiles of 137Cs are given. In Lake Mälaren,
16 cores were dated, and the Chernobyl-peak was generally found at between 4
and 12 cm sediment depth. Using the sediment water contents, the mean annual
dry substance deposition rates have been calculated, see Table II. A mean value
for the whole eastern Lake Mälaren is 1500 g ds/m2 y. Of the 15 cores in the
archipelago four were not from A-areas and have been omitted from the analyses.
Other avaliable data from other studies have been included to get more reliable
sediment deposition estimations. For sub-area 2, three dated cores from Östlund
et al. (1998), and for sub-area 5, three dated cores (personal communication: Per
Jonsson) have been included. This gives 17 cores and a mean sedimentation of 2300
g ds/m2 y for the whole investgated archipelago area. The water contents are higher
in the archipelago than in Lake Mälaren, and the 137 Cs peaks in the archipelago
areas are generally found at sediment depths of 10 to 20 cm (and even down to
35 cm), see Figure 2. Most of the analysed cores show relatively sharp peaks in
137
Cs which indicates that the cores are undisturbed and facilitates accurate dating.
From the five sub-areas with three or more dated cores, it is possible to study the
within sub-area variability in sedimentation of matter. A mean CV of 0.45 for the
sediment deposition has been calculated. This is, thus, almost twice as large as the
CV for the metal concentrations, and, hence, one of the most uncertain factors in
the metal deposition calculations. (For the sub-areas with two analysed cores the
deposition values are, however, generally quite similar.)
The sharp 137Cs peaks also indicate a low degree of post-depositional remo-
bilsation of cesium. 137 Cs is known to be strongly bound to particulate matter (e.g.,
Håkanson, 2000). The particle affinity varies between elements and is controlled by
 TABLE II
Median values and variabilities (expressed as CV = standard deviation/mean value) of n1 surface sediment samples, water content, (W, %),
loss on ignition (LOI, % of dry weight) and heavy metal concentrations. Sediment deposition (Dep) from n2 dated cores; complete data
are given if n2 ≤ 2, else mean value and CV

Sub-area W LOI n1 Cd Cr Cu Hg Ni Pb Zn n2 Dep

(%) (%) (µg/g ds) (g ds/m2 y)

A 87.7 11.8 6 0.73 53.7 49.8 0.10 66.0 75.4 255 2 1590;2026
CV 0.01 0.07 0.22 0.09 0.15 0.41 0.15 0.20 0.11 –
B 89.6 12.5 6 0.43 54.0 62.8 0.16 56.8 47.5 232 2 433; 1162
CV 0.03 0.13 0.28 0.10 0.15 0.87 0.10 0.15 0.14 –
G 88.6 12.5 6 0.79 59.7 89.8 0.29 51.6 73.0 284 3 981
CV 0.01 0.06 0.27 0.09 0.19 0.33 0.03 0.06 0.07 0.26
C 90.7 15.3 6 1.11 61.0 117 0.45 45.6 96.8 314 2 1283;1378
CV 0.01 0.08 0.31 0.15 0.39 0.37 0.02 0.13 0.08 –
E 87.2 12.0 5 2.03 83.0 192 0.94 43.8 179 521 2 1484;1886
CV 0.01 0.06 0.26 0.13 0.25 0.22 0.07 0.11 0.20 –
F 88.1 14.2 6 3.49 84.6 264 3.02 47.0 294 862 2 1894;1951
CV 0.03 0.08 0.22 0.08 0.07 0.15 0.04 0.18 0.09 –
D 89.2 13.4 4 1.57 65.8 161 1.04 45.7 233 468 3 1532
CV 0.07 0.35 0.20 0.17 0.14 0.30 0.16 0.22 0.20 0.38
1 92.5 19.9 5 3.22 78.3 298 2.87 38.0 332 613 3 1974
HEAVY METAL SEDIMENT LOAD FROM THE CITY OF STOCKHOLM

CV 0.02 0.11 0.27 0.13 0.23 0.55 0.16 0.21 0.16 0.10
2 97.3 20.6 3 2.36 95.8 207 2.27 45.1 207 465 4 2711
CV 0.01 0.11 0.33 0.10 0.17 0.27 0.09 0.13 0.18 0.66
109
 110

TABLE II
Continued

Sub-area W LOI n1 Cd Cr Cu Hg Ni Pb Zn n2 Dep

(%) (%) (µg/g ds) (g ds/m2 y)

3 96.7 21.1 4 1.33 55.0 85.3 0.77 28.2 93.5 287 1 1281
CV 0.02 0.05 0.47 0.51 0.50 0.59 0.53 0.57 0.37 –
5 98.6 24.2 5 0.90 37.3 53.4 0.28 26.7 46.8 216 4 2193
CV 0.03 0.14 0.30 0.45 0.34 0.91 0.29 0.41 0.27 0.84
4 97.9 21.1 5 1.32 66.5 111 0.91 39.4 86.4 341 2 609;700
CV 0.03 0.20 0.45 0.46 0.45 0.11 0.45 0.43 0.37 –
M. LINDSTRÖM ET AL.

6 93.2 15.6 6 0.71 76.2 78.4 0.39 48.7 62.5 263 1 4146
CV 0.03 0.10 0.26 0.22 0.15 0.50 0.23 0.28 0.18 –
7 97.6 17.6 4 0.69 53.3 58.4 0.39 38.7 40.7 218 2 3285;3438
CV 0.04 0.10 0.26 0.34 0.30 0.99 0.30 0.37 0.25 –
 HEAVY METAL SEDIMENT LOAD FROM THE CITY OF STOCKHOLM 111

Figure 2. Results of the dating of 16 sediment cores from eastern Lake Mälaren, and 11 from the
archipelago. The cores are denoted with sub-area and core number.

several factors, e.g., type of particulate matter, pH and redox-conditions (Håkan-

son, 1999). In the following, it is, for simplicity, assumed that metal deposition
may be calculated as metal concentrations multiplied by dry matter deposition. To
be able to relevantly compare metal deposition between sub-areas, the deposition
values have been corrected for ‘sediment focusing’ (Håkanson and Peters, 1995).
A sub-area with small A-areas generally have a high deposition of materials due
to the internal redistribution (focusing) of sediments from the relatively large ET-
areas. In Figure 3, the average deposition values from the dated cores corrected
by the ‘sediment focusing factor’ (A-area)/(total water area) are presented. This
shows that the metal deposition increases in area C and is clearly elevated in areas
D, E, F, 1 and 2. Cd, Cu, Hg and Pb show a 5-fold increase followed by Zn, 3-fold,
112 M. LINDSTRÖM ET AL.

Figure 3. Estimated metal deposition, average from dated cores, corrected for sediment focusing.
The unit on the y-axis is g/(m2 y).

compared to sub-area A. Ni does not change at all and Cr increases only slightly.
For the archipelago sub-areas (1 to 7), the metal deposition (Figure 3) generally
shows good agreement with the settling flux estimated by Broman et al. (1994),
using sediment traps.
An estimation of the total sediment load is given in Table III. This could, for the
archipelago areas, be compared with the heavy metal outflow from Lake Mälaren.
The national Swedish environmental monitoring programme includes one sampling
point close to the Lake Mälaren outlet to the Stockholm archipelago. Here wa-
ter is sampled monthly for analyses of heavy metal concentrations of unfiltered
samples. Data on water flow are available on a daily basis. In Table IV, the metal
fluxes entering the archipelago from Lake Mälaren are given for 1995, 1996 and
1997. A comparison (Table III and Table IV) shows that the amounts of Pb and
Hg in the Lake Mälaren outflow are lower than the amounts deposited in the
innermost archipelago sub-areas (1 and 2). The outflows of Cd, Cu, Ni and Zn,
on the other hand, are not matched by a corresponding sedimentation in all the
investigated archipelago areas. This is interesting, and even though no simple re-
lationship between the Lake Mälaren metal outflow and sediment deposition may
be expected, the present results indicate a clear difference in trapping efficiency
among the studied metals.
 HEAVY METAL SEDIMENT LOAD FROM THE CITY OF STOCKHOLM 113
TABLE III
Estimation of the total sediment deposition

Sub-area Cd Cr Cu Hg Ni Pb Zn
(kg y−1 )

A 8.4 617 572 1.2 759 867 2928

B 1.3 163 190 0.5 171 143 701
G 1.0 75 114 0.4 65 92 360
C 1.4 78 148 0.6 58 123 398
E 1.7 68 157 0.8 36 146 426
F 2.0 47 148 1.7 26 165 484
D 2.0 86 210 1.4 60 303 609
1 5.4 131 498 4.8 63 555 1023
2 21.1 859 1861 20.3 404 1854 4170
3 11.1 460 713 6.5 236 781 2401
5 14.8 615 881 4.6 440 771 3556
4 1.2 58 98 0.8 35 76 299
6 7.2 776 799 3.9 496 637 2680
7 8.5 653 715 4.7 473 497 2671

Total 90 4700 7000 50 3300 7000 23000

TABLE IV

Water and heavy metal outflow from Lake Mälaren to the archipelago, during 3 years (1995–1997)

Year Water Cd Cr Cu Hg Ni Pb Zn
(Mm3 y−1 ) (kg y−1 )

1995 5416 190 – 18421 32 – 1763 22649

1996 2539 140 1019 12520 6 10390 1579 22390
1997 3399 110 1427 11404 13 10980 1524 17850

3.3. S OURCES OF METALS

If the amounts of metals (Hg and Pb) deposited in the innermost archipelago (Table
III) exceed the outflow from Lake Mälaren (Table IV), it means that there must
exist other sources of metals to the archipelago area. Ground water heavy metal
transport has been suggested to be very low in the Stockholm area (Aastrup and
Thunholm, 2000) and fluxes related to water treatment plant effluents are small
(except possibly for Hg, where all concentrations were below the detection limit;
114 M. LINDSTRÖM ET AL.

TABLE V
Coefficients (r, * denotes p < 0.001, n =10) for the correlations of surface sediment
concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb and Zn to Ni and Se (for Ni-Sc, r = 0.94, p <
0.001) from the outermost archipelago sample points. 95% confidence intervals for
the ratios of the metals to Ni are given and for comparison ratio values from (a) the
Åland Sea, (b) the Bothnian Sea, (c) the Baltic proper (Borg and Jonsson, 1996) and
(d) the Baltic proper (Hallberg, 1991) are given. Our ratios for Cr and Cu to Ni are
slightly higher than these, possibly indicating Stockholm influences

Metal r (Ni) r (Sc) 95% lower 95% upper a b c d

Cd 0.24 0.09
Cr 0.98 * 0.95 * 1.39 1.54 1.00 1.22 0.80 –
Cu 0.94 * 0.92 * 1.45 1.67 1.03 0.95 1.29 0.96
Hg –0.03 0.01
Pb 0.89 * 0.92 * 1.09 1.40 1.32 0.98 1.45 1.67
Zn 0.98 * 0.92 * 5.17 5.63 5.95 4.71 7.35 3.95

Östlund and Jonsson, 1998) compared to the outflow from Lake Mälaren. Also
direct atmospheric deposition to the water surface has been calculated to be low
(less than 20% of the Lake Mälaren outflow, using the data from SLB, 1998).
In addition to these known sources, unknown amounts of drainage and internal
loading influence the inner archipelago and there could exist several unknown point
sources. The metal deposition pattern, discussed herein, and studies of Chernobyl
137
Cs suggest that there might also be large amounts of inflow from the Baltic Sea
into the Stockholm archipelago. Meili et al. (2000) found large inventories of 137 Cs
from Chernobyl in these archipelago areas (10–40 kBq m−2 ), which is remarkable,
since the direct fallout was very low (0–2 kBq m−2 ). This is very interesting and
suggests that the hydrodynamical conditions along the interface between the open
Baltic Sea and the coastal zone may be important also deep in the archipelago
area. It should, however, be noted that Chernobyl cesium might also be transported
from the Lake Mälaren drainage area into the innermost archipelago areas. Ni, Cu
and to some extent Cd and Zn show an opposite pattern (compared to Hg and Pb)
with only small amounts of the Lake Mälaren outflow accumulating in the inner
archipelago.
To estimate the total load on the sediments from the city of Stockholm, the
deposition has to be corrected for a background deposition. The question is – what
concentration /deposition would there be without any metal emissions from Stock-
holm? A common method to estimate background concentrations is to analyse
‘old’ sediments from deep sediment cores from A-areas (Håkanson and Jansson,
1983). In the Stockholm area, however, this is very difficult since Stockholm is
a very old city. Metals have been emitted for at least two centuries (Svidén and
 HEAVY METAL SEDIMENT LOAD FROM THE CITY OF STOCKHOLM 115
TABLE VI
Estimated range (minimum and maximum) of the present day heavy metal sediment
load from the city of Stockholm and total sediment load (from Table III)

Cd Cr Cu Hg Pb Zn
(kg y−1 )

Minimum 20 300 1500 20 1900 3600

Maximum 80 1200 4500 60 5700 12000
Total sediment load (from Table III) 90 4700 7000 50 7000 23000

Jonsson, 2000), and background estimations would require very deep sediment
cores since the sedimentation is very high. Another approach, which will be used
here, is to utilize the metal concentrations from the outermost sample points as
reference values (assuming a negligible influence from the city). These concentra-
tions have to be corrected to account for processes along the transect influencing
the natural metal concentration, such as reduction/oxidation reactions and desorp-
tion (Louma, 1990). Factors influencing these processes are, e.g., salinity and pH,
which influence the metal distribution between the particulate and the dissolved
phases (Salomons and Förstner, 1984). One method to account for natural changes
along the transect is to normalise concentrations to an element that has only (or at
least is dominated by) natural sources, e.g. Sc, Fe, Al or Ti and also has similar
sedimentological properties (e.g. carrier particle adsorption and desorption) as the
elements of interest.
Ni is such an element, and does not show any increased concentrations (see
Table II) or sediment deposition (Figure 3) in the Stockholm central areas, and
could be used as a normalising element (this is also supported by Blomqvist and
Larsson, 1996, who did not detect any enrichment of Ni in central Stockholm com-
pared to Sc). Table V shows that the Ni concentrations of the ten samples from the
two outermost archipelago areas correlate with Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn. This indicates a
similar natural sedimentation pattern; also Sc shows correlations but Ni has higher
correlation coefficients (except for Pb). Ranges (probable minimum and maximum
estimations) of the Stockholm load on the sediments are given in Table VI, using
values calculated from the 95% confidence intervals of the ratios of Cr, Cu, Pb and
Zn to Ni (Table V) as a range of the background concentrations and reasonable
ranges for the other main uncertain calculation variables (deposition rates and A-
areas). For Lake Mälaren the problem with the changing water chemical conditions
(mainly salinity) does not exist. The lowest surface sediment concentration and the
lowest sub-area median (Table II) are used as background range estimations. Since
Cd and Hg in the archipelago do not correlate with Ni, the same method has been
used to estimate the background concentrations for these metals.
116 M. LINDSTRÖM ET AL.

As can be seen in Table VI, the estimations are uncertain with a factor about two
to three for most of the metals. It should be noted that this sediment load is not the
total Stockholm metal aquatic load, but only the part that reaches the sediments.
To calculate the total load from the city of Stockholm, a model including water
transport of dissolved metals must be used (that work is going on in our group).
In estuaries, the mixing of outflowing freshwater with seawater generally cre-
ates a zone of increased deposition (e.g., Salomons et al., 1988; Millward and
Glegg, 1997). When disregarding the local source, i.e., when studying the back-
ground concentrations of Ni, no such zone could be noted in this archipelago,
probably because of the small salinity gradient.

4. Conclusions

This study has shown that of the metal load from the Lake Mälaren outlet most
of the Hg and Pb are trapped in the sediments near the city of Stockholm. Ni, Cu
(and Cd, Zn) on the other hand are not retained to the same degree in the area
but probably transported through the archipelago towards the Baltic. In addition
to large diffuse fluxes from the city, the results indicate that there may be other
important sources of metals (Hg and Pb) to the inner archipelago. Inflow from
the Baltic is suggested to be a probable source since water retention times in the
archipelago areas are very short.
There is a 5-fold increased sediment deposition of Cd, Cu, Hg, Pb and 3-fold
of Zn in the central areas of Stockholm compared to the surrounding areas and
approximate contributions from the city of Stockholm to the total load have been
estimated. Of the total sediment deposition (Table III), more than half of the Hg
has been estimated to originate from the city of Stockholm (Table VI); for Cd, Cu
and Pb approximately half, and for Cr and Zn less than half. Ni is not believed to
have any significant Stockholm sources contributing to the total sediment load.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the crews of R/V Sunbeam for excellent field work, Lena
Lundman and Anders Düker for invaluable help with the chemical analyses, Stock-
holm Water AB for the opportunity to join on a sampling cruise and for providing
water data and Anders Jönsson for providing the data on bottom dynamic condi-
tions of sub-area 5. The project was financially supported by the National Swedish
Environmental Protection Agency. The content of the paper has been improved by
the comments of an anonymous reviewer. This is gratefully acknowledged.
 HEAVY METAL SEDIMENT LOAD FROM THE CITY OF STOCKHOLM 117

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