Water Resource Associates
A network of consultants in water resources, water quality, hydrology, hydrogeology and flooding.
Assessment and Modelling of Mercury in UK Rivers and Lakes.
A new version of INCA for Mercury has been developed and applied to the Gardsjon catchment in Sweden and Lock Nagar in Scotland.
Background
A new version of INCA has been developed to assess the build up of mercury in catchments from atmospheric mercury deposition and also from terrestrial sources of mercury. The major issue is the release of methyl mercury into upland streams and lakes and the high concentrations of mercury in fish in northern European lakes. This is a serious problem in Sweden where many lakes have high mercury levels in fish and these are so high that the fish are toxic to humans if eaten. The new version of INCA has been developed to simulate the build up of mercury on soils and the leaching of mercury into rivers and lakes. The model has been applied to the Gardsjon catchment in Sweden and Loch Nagar in Scotland.
Loch Nagar, Scotland
Distributions of methyl and total mercury
Scope of work by Water Resource Associates Ltd
Development of new INCA-Mercury model for catchments and application to catchments in Sweden and Scotland.
Results
Report to EA and DEFRA. Methyl Mercury Modelling and Analysis in Catchments: Impacts on Biota.: S. Comber, P. Whitehead and M Futter