Identification and assessment of the environmental pathways of mercury: from source to environment by chemical function. ELME Deliverable 4.2

This report gives details on major anthropogenic sources of atmospheric Hg include area and point sources. Area sources includes emissions from small scale fuel burning, electric lamp breakage, laboratory use, dental preparation, landfills, and sludge application. Point sources include combustion processes, manufacturing industries and a wide range of minor sources. Coal and oil burning in electric utilities as well as in residential, commercial and industrial facilities, incineration of solid waste (namely municipal solid waste and medical waste) and sewage sludge, and primary non-ferrous metal smelters are major combustion sources categories. Estimates of mercury emissions to the global atmosphere suggest that the contribution from industrial sources ranges between 2200 t yr-1 (1992 estimate by Pirrone et al., 1996) to 1660 t yr-1 (1990 estimate by Pacyna and Pacyna, 1996). Once released to the atmosphere, mercury and its compounds can be transported over long distances before being removed by particle dry deposition and wet scavenging by precipitation (i.e., Pirrone et al., 2000; Pirrone et al., 2003a; 2003b; Hedgecock and Pirrone, 2001; 2004). The temporal and spatial scales of mercury transport in the atmosphere and its transfer to aquatic and terrestrial receptors depends primarily on the chemical and physical forms of mercury which drive their interactions with otheratmospheric contaminants and with surface marine waters as well.