Sedimentary filters for emerging contaminants in estuarine and coastal systems

由于水处理过程或城市径流对有机化学品的去除不彻底，现在在环境沃茨中发现了一系列日益使用的有机化学品。这些包括雌激素、个人护理产品、药品、杀虫剂和持久性的、所谓的“永久性化学品”，如全氟烷基化物质。已知这些新出现的有机污染物中有一些在极低浓度下（十亿分之几至万亿分之几）对生态系统和可能的人类健康产生影响。虽然一些研究已经审查了这些污染物在废水或淡水系统中的去除、生物吸收或降解情况，但它们在河口系统中以及与河口系统（如作为盐的沼泽）（在许多河流提供的污染物进入海洋之前，盐沼充当了这些污染物的自然过滤器）的相互作用机制目前尚不清楚。该项目将研究一系列新出现的污染物在两个对比鲜明的河口-英国南部海岸的索伦特系统和珠江三角洲系统（中国）的河口沼泽和泥滩系统的循环，保留和分解。工作将特别侧重于污染物降解或积累机制、污染物与沉积有机碳的相互作用以及新出现的污染物对河口和沿海系统造成的潜在环境风险。

A range of increasingly utilised organic chemicals are now found in environmental waters due to their incomplete removal by water treatment processes, or via urban run-off. These include estrogens, personal care products, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and persistent, so-called "forever chemicals" such as perfluoro-alkylated substances. A number of these emerging organic contaminants are known to have ecosystem and possible human health impacts at very low concentrations, in the parts per billion to parts per trillion range. Although a number of studies have examined the removal, biological uptake or degradation of these contaminants in wastewater or freshwater systems, their interaction mechanisms in and with estuarine systems such as salt marshes (which act as natural filters for many river-supplied contaminants before they enter the sea) are currently unclear. This project will examine the cycling, retention and breakdown of a range of emerging contaminants in estuarine marsh and mudflat systems in two contrasting estuaries - the Solent system on the southern UK coast, and the Pearl River Delta system (China). Work will focus in particular on contaminant degradation or accumulation mechanisms, contaminant interaction with sedimentary organic carbon, and the potential environmental risk that emerging contaminants pose to estuarine and coastal systems.