Reconstruction of Lead (Pb) Fluxes in Europe during 1955-1995 and Evaluation of Gasoline Lead-Content Regulations

The paper reports about a project aiming at the reconstruction of fluxes of substances on the regional scale for several decades. As a prototypical example the case of lead, related to traffic, on the European scale is considered. In the "GKSS Lead Project" models for the transport of lead in the atmosphere, and in large river basins are constructed and validated. Moreover methodologies for evaluating the ecological and economical impacts of European lead emission regulations are developped.

The model system is set up for the time space 1955-95 with special emphasis on the catchment of the river Elbe. A high resolution atmospheric dataset is obtained through dynamical downscaling from the NCEP reanalyses, using a newly developped spectral nudging technique. The regionalized wind and precipitation fields provide the input data for the atmospheric transport and deposition model TUBES. Spatially diaggregated lead emissions are estimated mainly from the sale statistics of gasoline.

So far, a pilot simulation for 3 months has demonstrated the utility and power of the proposed modelling strategy. The regulations and the resulting impacts on the traffic-related emissions of lead have been analysed. Time series of concentrations in the atmosphere and in fluvial sediments have been collected and analysed. As expected, the lead regulations positively affected the lead concentrations in the environment. Lead concentrations not only declined in the atmosphere and in the sediments, but also in organisms, such as plants and human beings.