Human perturbations to mercury in global rivers
Mercury compounds are potent neurotoxins that pose threats to human health, primarily through fish consumption. Rivers, critical for drinking water and food supply, have seen rapid increases in mercury concentrations and export to coastal margins since the Industrial Revolution (~1850). However, patterns of these changes remain understudied, limiting assessments of environmental policies. Here, we develop a global model to simulate preindustrial riverine total mercury and assess human perturbations by comparing it to present-day conditions. We find that global rivers transported ~390 megagrams annually of mercury to the oceans in the preindustrial era, with spatial variability. Human activities have elevated riverine mercury budgets by two to three times in the present day. Establishing a baseline riverine mercury level, our findings reveal rapid responses of riverine mercury to human perturbations and could be used to inform targets for global riverine mercury restoration. Total riverine mercury concentrations could also be used as indicators to comprehensively understand the effectiveness of mercury pollution governance.
Authors
- Beth A. Middleton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1220-2326)
- Jeroen E. Sonke (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7146-3035)
- Dong Peng
- Peipei Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3969-3372)
- Yanxu Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7770-3466)
- Zhengcheng Song (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-4298-8243)
- Ting Lei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9571-5698)
- Tengfei Yuan
- Jianhua Gao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5059-9304)
- Zeli Tan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5958-2584)
- Peng Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5569-0550)
- Guangchun Lei
- Shaojian Huang
Institutions
- Tulane University (US)
- United States Geological Survey (US)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (US)
- Scripps Institution of Oceanography (US)
- Université Fédérale de Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées (FR)
- Beijing Forestry University (CN)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Géosciences Environnement Toulouse (FR)
- Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR)
- U.S. Geological Survey, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center
- Nanjing University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Science Advances
- Published
- 2025-06-11
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adw0471
- Citations
- 10
- Primary Topic
- Mercury impact and mitigation studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 12.00