Monitoring of the natural environment by chemical speciation of elements in aerosol and sediment samples

The development of a monitoring network for chemical speciation of elements of aerosol and sediment samples collected at Lake Balaton has been carried out. Sequential leaching procedures for the determination of the distribut ion of elements in aerosols (3 steps) and sediments (4 steps) were used. Th ese methods were recently successfully applied to describe environmentally mobile and stable fractions of toxic metals. In aerosol matrices the partit ion of elements was accomplished by particle size and chemical bonding. In sediments the distribution was performed by chemical bonding. The processes are called fractionation of elements. Particular attention was paid to dis tinguishing between environmentally mobile and environmentally immobile fra ctions because these represent the two extreme modes by which the metals ar e bound to solid matrices. The monitoring objectives were to assess polluti on effects on man and Iris environment and to identify any possible cause a nd effect relationship between pollutant concentrations and health effects. The results of dry and wet deposition rates showed that most of the toxic metals were dissolved in an aqueous phase and the wet deposition played an important role. It has been found that, while the concentration of Cd and P b in aerosols is low (0.7 and 29 ng m(-3), respectively), environmentally m obile fractions are considerable. Based upon the data it call be concluded that the effect of the anthropogenic sources on the quality of the lake is minor. This has been the first attempt to correlate speciation results betw een aerosols and sediments.