Occurrence and Mobility of Mercury in Groundwater

Source
Mercury
e 
(Mg/yr)
Year for estimate
Natural
Oceans
2,680
2008
Lakes
96
2008
Forests
342
2008
Tundra/grasslands
b
448
2008
Desert/non vegetated areas
c
546
2008
Volcanoes and geothermal areas
90
2008
Anthropogenic
Non-ferrous metal production
310
2003-06
Pig iron and steel production
43
2003-06
Cement production
236
2003-06
Caustic soda production (chlor alkali process)
163
2003-06
Mercury production
50
2003-06
Gold production
400
2003-06
Waste disposal
187
2003-06
Stationary (fossil fuel) combustion
810
2003-06
Coal-bed fires
32
2003-06
Vinyl chloride monomer production
24
2003-06
Other
65
2003-06
Biomass burning
d
675
2008
Agricultural areas
d
128
2008
a
 the mean uncertainty associated with these estimates is + 25% (Pirrone et al., 2010)
b
Includes savannah, prairie, chaparral.
c
Includes metalliferrous areas.
d
Amounts may need reconfiguring from Pirrone et al.(2010) category of natural sources, p. 5953, because some burning
is caused by humans, agricultural inputs of Hg are anthropogenic, and evasion is amplified by soil disturbance.
e
Values have been rounded to the nearest whole number.
Table 1. 
Estimates
a
of global mercury emissions from natural and anthropogenic sources, and year(s) for which
estimate is made. [Mg, megagrams; Data from Pirrone et al., 2010 and references therein]
Current Perspectives in Contaminant Hydrology and Water Resources Sustainability
122

---

residues, to groundwater where Hg concentrations in domestic well water are found to
exceed the State and USEPA MCL of 2,000 ng/L.