Pollution history revealed by sedimentary records: a review

This overview focuses on geochemical and geochronological investigations on dated sediment profiles, used for the evaluation of the inventory and fate of persistent pollutants within the aquatic environment over time and space. It includes a short description of the spectrum of sediment contaminants such as heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), pesticides, pharmaceuticals or personal care products, of the contamination sources and pathways, the prerequisites of the analytical approach as well as numerous case studies worldwide. The aim of the review was to summarise the current knowledge related to the historical input of organic and inorganic sediment contaminants into marine, limnic and fluvial sediment archives, their general contamination trends referring to the increase in sediment contamination during the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century as well as source-specific trends of modern or present-day contaminants since the last four decades. Based on the available literature, it demonstrates the benefit of using correlated chronological and geochemical investigations as a tool for the evaluation of the chemical status and risk assessment of pollutants in aquatic sediment archives over long time intervals, for instance since urbanisation and industrialisation started.