Soil and biomass mercury emissions during a prescribed fire in the Amazonian rain forest

Melendez‐Perez, Jose J.; Fostier, Anne Hélène; Carvalho, João Andrade de; Windmöller, Cláudia Carvalhinho; Santos, José Carlos dos; Carpi, Anthony

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2014.06.032

Cited by 64 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Figure 2 shows that the highest GEM values are concentrated into short peaks, clustered more heavily around the mid-to late dry season. In the absence of local anthropogenic sources, this is considered consistent with biomassburning events and the associated release of mercury from volatilisation and thermal desorption from vegetation and soils (Melendez-Perez et al, 2014). These biomass-burning events occur extensively in northern Australia throughout the dry season as the result of natural and accidental lighting, as well as part of local land management practices (RusselSmith et al, 2007).…”

Section: Overall Means and Seasonal Trendsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric mercury in the Southern Hemisphere tropics: seasonal and diurnal variations and influence of inter-hemispheric transport

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Mercury is a toxic element of serious concern for human and environmental health. Understanding its natural cycling in the environment is an important goal towards assessing its impacts and the effectiveness of mitigation strategies. Due to the unique chemical and physical properties of mercury, the atmosphere is the dominant transport pathway for this heavy metal, with the consequence that regions far removed from sources can be impacted. However, there exists a dearth of long-term monitoring of atmospheric mercury, particularly in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere. This paper presents the first 2 years of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) measurements taken at the Australian Tropical Atmospheric Research Station (ATARS) in northern Australia, as part of the Global Mercury Observation System (GMOS). Annual mean GEM concentrations determined at ATARS (0.95 ± 0.12 ng m −3 ) are consistent with recent observations at other sites in the Southern Hemisphere. Comparison with GEM data from other Australian monitoring sites suggests a concentration gradient that decreases with increasing latitude. Seasonal analysis shows that GEM concentrations at ATARS are significantly lower in the distinct wet monsoon season than in the dry season. This result provides insight into alterations of natural mercury cycling processes as a result of changes in atmospheric humidity, oceanic/terrestrial fetch, and convective mixing, and invites future investigation using wet mercury deposition measurements. Due to its location relative to the atmospheric equator, ATARS intermittently samples air originating from the Northern Hemisphere, allowing an opportunity to gain greater understanding of inter-hemispheric transport of mercury and other atmospheric species. Diurnal cycles of GEM at ATARS show distinct nocturnal depletion events that are attributed to dry deposition under stable boundary layer conditions. These cycles provide strong further evidence supportive of a "multihop" model of GEM cycling, characterised by multiple surface depositions and re-emissions, in addition to long-range transport through the atmosphere.

show abstract

Section: Overall Means and Seasonal Trendsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric mercury in the Southern Hemisphere tropics: seasonal and diurnal variations and influence of inter-hemispheric transport

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Thus, developing good estimates of the load released from these sources is critical to addressing uncertainties in our understanding of the global mercury cycle (Lindberg et al, 2007). Mercury is known to be emitted during forest fires (Friedli et al, 2001;Veiga et al, 1994), and numerous studies have reported the emission of the metal during biomass burning (Friedli et al, 2003;Sigler et al, 2003;Turetsky et al, 2006), including a companion study at the same site in Acre, Brazil (Melendez-Perez et al, 2014). However, less is known about the effect that forest fires and other forms of deforestation have on the release of gaseous mercury from soil in the local environment following the deforestation event.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gaseous mercury emissions from soil following forest loss and land use changes: Field experiments in the United States and Brazil

Carpi

Fostier

Orta

et al. 2014

Atmospheric Environment

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…Research on soil and biomass mercury emissions during a wildfire in an Amazonian rain forest showed that mercury release rate from different plant components and soil layers differed greatly due to combustion completeness which is defined as the ratio of biomass consumed by fire to total available biomass category (MelendezPerez et al, 2014). In this study, we referenced the combustion completeness suggested by Melendez-Perez et al (2014) and assumed that all herbs was burnt and mercury was completely emitted to the atmosphere from the complete combustion of biomass. Mercury emission from each type of biomass and soils were shown in Table 3.…”

Section: Estimation Of Potential Mercury Release From Wildfiresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike other heavy metals, the biogeochemical cycling of mercury between atmosphere and forest terrestrial ecosystem is particularly important for subtropical ecosystems because huge amount of biomass was contained in subtropical forests and peat lands and forest was supposed to a large sinks of atmospheric mercury (Zhou et al, 2013(Zhou et al, , 2015bStankwitz et al, 2012). Coupled with global warming accelerated in northern latitudes (Raisanen, 1997) and high drought frequency in southwest China (Zhang and Zhou, 2015), these were of great scientific and public interest because of heightening wildfire activity and increasing mercury and carbon release to the atmosphere (Melendez-Perez et al, 2014;Friedli et al, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mercury in terrestrial forested systems with highly elevated mercury deposition in southwestern China: The risk to insects and potential release from wildfires

Zhou

Wang

Sun

et al. 2016

Environmental Pollution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tForests are considered a pool of mercury in the global mercury cycle. However, few studies have investigated the distribution of mercury in the forested systems in China. Tieshanping forest catchment in southwest China was impacted by mercury emissions from industrial activities and coal combustions. Our work studied mercury content in atmosphere, soil, vegetation and insect with a view to estimating the potential for mercury release during forest fires. Results of the present study showed that total gaseous mercury (TGM) was highly elevated and the annual mean concentration was 3.51 ± 1.39 ng m À2 .Of the vegetation tissues, the mercury concentration follows the order of leaf/ needle > root > bark > branch > bole wood for each species. Total ecosystem mercury pool was 103.5 mg m À2 and about 99.4% of the mercury resides in soil layers (0e40 cm). The remaining 0.6% (0.50 mg m À2) of mercury was stored in biomass. The large mercury stocks in the forest ecosystem pose a serious threat for large pluses to the atmospheric mercury during potential wildfires and additional ecological stress to forest insect: dung beetles, cicada and longicorn, with mercury concentration of 1983 ± 446, 49 ± 38 and 7 ± 5 ng g À1 , respectively. Hence, the results obtained in the present study has implications for global estimates of mercury storage in forests, risks to forest insect and potential release to the atmosphere during wildfires.

show abstract

Soil and biomass mercury emissions during a prescribed fire in the Amazonian rain forest

Cited by 64 publications

References 51 publications

Atmospheric mercury in the Southern Hemisphere tropics: seasonal and diurnal variations and influence of inter-hemispheric transport

Atmospheric mercury in the Southern Hemisphere tropics: seasonal and diurnal variations and influence of inter-hemispheric transport

Gaseous mercury emissions from soil following forest loss and land use changes: Field experiments in the United States and Brazil

Mercury in terrestrial forested systems with highly elevated mercury deposition in southwestern China: The risk to insects and potential release from wildfires

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About