NEWS
Climate change affects how pollutants, such as lead and dioxin, move through the environment. Researchers at Umeå University will be participating in a newly started European Union project to study how pollutants spread.
The object of the project, which has the name PERSPEC: Perspectives on mobilisation of prioritised contaminants in soil, is to obtain a better understanding for the processes that are important for the transport of pollution in soil and water.
“In Sweden and throughout Europe we see changes in precipitation and temperature. These climate factors greatly impact how different pollutants move through the environment,” said Magnus Bergknut, Project Manager.
The project was initiated by Magnus Bergknut, Hjalmar Laudon, and Karin Wiberg, It will be managed and coordinated by Bergknut and Professor Mats Tysklind (Department of chemistry, Umeå University, Sweden).
PERSPEC will focus on priory substances according to the European water framework directive (WFD) such as metals (e.g. mercury, lead and aluminium), and persistent organic pollutants (POPs; e.g. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, brominated diphenylethers, chlorophenols, chlorobenzenes, PCBs and dioxins). The project will focus on the Krycklan catchment area in Vindeln, where hydrological and biogeochemical data has been collected over a period of 30 years.
“Krycklan is a catchment area that has seen little human impact, which gives us a valuable starting point for studies of areas with large human impact,” explains Magnus Bergknut.
PERSPEC incorporates researchers from Umeå University (Sweden), Lancaster University (UK), and Graz University of Technology (Austria). Financial support is provided by SNOWMAN – ”Sustainable management of soil and groundwater under the pressure of soil pollution and soil contamination”, which in turn is financed by the European Research Area Networks (ERA-NET).
