An evaluation of river catchment quality in relation to restoration issues. AHMED, Badria S. Available from the Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/19204/ A Sheffield Hallam University thesis This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Please visit http://shura.shu.ac.uk/19204/ and http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html for further details about copyright and re-use permissions. Return to Learning Centre of issue Fines are charged at 50p per hour 2 6 JUL J U X V U l 1 V /-L i REFERENCE ProQuest Number: 10694084 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10694084 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 - 1346 An Evaluation of River Catchment Quality in Relation to Restoration Issues. Badria. S. Ahmed (A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of Sheffield Hallam University for the degree of Master of Philosophy) 2004 Contents ABSTRACT V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS VI CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1. Introduction 2 1.1 Introduction 2 1.2 Study Area 3 1.3 Water Quality Control In UK 5 1.4 The History of The Rother and its Valley 6 1.4.1 Rhdne-Poulenc Chemicals Ltd. (Staveley Chemicals Ltd.) 13 1.5 Geological Information System (GIS) 16 1.5.1 The Origins and History of GIS 16 1.6 Research Programme 17 1.7 Aims and Objectives 18 1.7.1 Plan of Work 19 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 20 2. Literature Review 21 2.1 Introduction 21 2.2 The Environment and the Attempts to Determine the Degree of Pollution 21 2.3. The Restoration of Contaminated Land 29 2.4 The River Rother 33 2.5 Initiatives Relating to the Restoration of the River Rother 37 2.6 Standards for soil contamination 39 CHAPTER 3: THE HEAVY METALS 42 3.1 An overview of Heavy Metals in the Natural Environment 43 3.2 Comments on the Chamalenitis of the environmentally significant Heavy Metals 45 3.2.1 Cadmium 45 3.2.2 Toxicity of Cadmium 46 3.2.3 Copper 46 3.2.4 Toxicity of Copper 48 3.2.5 Lead 49 3.2.6 Toxicology of Lead 50 3.2.7 Mercury 50 3.2.8 Toxicology of Mercury 52 3.2.9 Minamata Disease 54 3.2.10 Nickel 55 3.2.11 Toxicology of Nickel 56 3.2.12 Zinc 57 3.2.13 Toxicity of Zinc 58 3.3 Heavy Metals in the Environment and their sources 59 3.4 Sources of Heavy Metals 60 CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY 63 4. Methodology 64 4.1 Introduction 64 4.2 The Research Sampling Plan 65 4.2.1 Visiting the River 65 4.2.2 Sample Locations 66 4.2.3 Sample Collection 69 4.2.4 Drying and Grinding 69 4.2.5 Sample Preparation for Analysis 70 I 4.2.6 Summary of Method 71 4.3 Sample Analysis 71 4.3.1 Mercury Analysis - 73 4.4 Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) 73 4.4.1 Instrumental Parameters Used 73 4.5 Inductively Coupled Plasma ICP 74 4.5.1 ICP Properties 74 CHAPTER 5: RESULTS AND THEIR INTERPERTATION. 75 5. Results 76 3.2 Presentation of Tables and Figures 76 5.2 Interoperation of Results 100 5.2.1 Levels of contaminations 100 5.2.2 Trigger values of contamination 102 I) t u p t o n 103 II) WHITTINGTON MOOR 1 103 III) WHITTINGTON MOOR 2 103 IV) STAVELEY 103 V)HAGUE 103 VI) RENISHAW 104 VII) KILLAMARSH 104 VIII) BEIGHTON 104 IX) CATCLIFFE 104 X) ROTHERHAM 104 XI) DON 1 105 XII) DON 2 105 CHAPTER 6 : DISCUSSION 106 6. Discussion 107 6.1 Introduction 107 6.2 The DEFRA Standards 113 6.3 The New Dutch List 117 6.4 Recommendations 119 6.4.1 Clean Up Technology 119 6.4.2 Re-use of the contaminated sites 120 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION 123 7. Conclusion 124 7.1 Limitations 127 7.2 Recommendations for further studies 127 REFERENCES 129 APPENDICES 142 II Tables and Figures: Table 1-1 Old and new classification 6 Table 1-2 The estimation of loss levels of mercury from the chlor-alkali system 13 Table 1-3 List one substance as detailed in Directive 76/464/EEC. 15 Table 2-1 The use of land after reclamation (1982 - 1988). 32 Table 2-2 The use of land after reclamation (1988 - 1993) 32 Table 3-1 Heavy metals minerals 43 Table 4-1 First phase site description and sub-samples sites 66 Table 4-2 Second phase site description and sub-samples sites 67 Table 4 3 The parameter of the microwave oven 71 Table 4-4 Atomic Absorption Spectrometry parameters 73 Table 4-5 Inductively Coupled Plasma properties. 74 Table 5-1 Sample sites used for phase 1 analysis 78 Table 5-2 Table containing total chemical analysis data from phasel study 81 Table 5-3 Table of data and illustrative graphs showing the heavy metals concentrations in floodplain soils of phase 1 surface samples between Tupton and Hague 82 Table 5-4 Site No. 1: TUPTON. 83 Table 5-5 Site No. 2 WHITTINGTON MOOR 1 84 Table 5-6 Site No. 3- WHITTINGTON MOOR 2 85 Table 5-7 Site No. 4 - STAVELEY 86 Table 5-8 Site No. 5- HAGUE 87 Table 5-9 Sample sites used for phase 2 analysis. 88 Table 5-10 Table containing total chemical analysis data from phase 2 study. 91 Table 5-11 Table of data and illustrative graphs showing the heavy metals concentrations in floodplain soils of phase n surface samples between Renishaw and Rotherham 92 Table 5-12 Site No. 1 RENISHAW 93 Table 5-13 Site No. 2 KILLAMARSH 94 Table 5-14 Site No. 3 BEIGHTON. 95 Table 5-15 Site No. 4 CATCLIFFE 96 Table 5-16 Site No. 5 ROTHERHAM. 97 Table 5-17 Site No. 6 DON 1 98 Table 5-18 Site No. 7 DON 2 99 Table 5-19 Kelly Indicators of contamination 100 Table 5-20 Results of phase 1 samples before upstream flooding and phase 2 samples Following major flood 101 Table 5-21 The New Dutch list of trigger values of heavy metals 102 Table 6-1 comparative results obtained from different studies in Rother catchment 110 Table 6-2 Indicative levels of contamination for Lead and Zinc. 111 Table 6-3 The DEFRA Standards 113 III Figure 1-1 Map showing the River Rother from Clay Cross to Rotherham 4 Figure 1-2 The distribution of industrial sites along the River Rother in 1850. * 9 Figure 1-3 The distribution of industrial sites along the River Rother in 1900. 10 Figure 1 -4 The distribution of industrial sites along the River Rother in 1960. 11 Figure 1-5 The distribution of industrial sites along the River Rother in 2000. 12 Figure 1-6 Levels of mercury in discharged water entering the River Rother 15 Figure 3-1 Cadmium Cd 45 Figure 3-2 Copper Cu 46 Figure 3-3 Lead Pb 49 Figure 3-4 Mercury Hg 50 Figure 3-5 Nickel Ni 55 Figure 3-6 Zinc Zn 57 Figure 4-1 A map showing the samples at first and second phases. 68 Figure 5-1 A map show the sample sites between Tupton and Hague 79 Figure 5-2 Sketch plan for sites 1-5 of phase 1 sample sites. 80 Figure 5-3 A map show the sample sites between Renishaw and Rotherham. 89 Figure 5-4 Sketch plan for sites 1-5 of phase 2 sample sites. 90 Figure 6 -1 Graph to illustrate the position of the two contamination zones along the River Rother. 111 Figure 6 -2 Migration of Mercury Contaminant plume downstream along the River Rother.112 IV Abstract Soil samples from the surface and subsurface of the floodplain of the River Rother were analysed for selected heavy metal concentrations at 12 locations along the river in order to discover whether the high concentrations, reported in previous studies from 1982 to 2002, had changed. The aim was to review the levels of heavy metal contamination along the floodplain of the Rother. Thirty-seven soil samples were taken along the River floodplain, at different sites and from different depths, collected in two phases. Samples collected, were dried, ground, digested and analysed by Atomic Absorption (AA) and Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) techniques. While the results from up-stream sites were mainly satisfactory, according to the New Dutch List Standard and Kelly Indices, the results obtained from downstream sites were variable probably due to a flood event (November 2002) and/or earlier tipping of wastes. Previous research identified a major heavy metal contamination plume within the sediments along the Rother.