Forestry and Mercury Pollution
The group recently wrapped up a major research project in northern Ontario with academic (including Drs. Karen Kidd and Stephanie Melles), industry and government (including Drs. Rob Mackereth and Erik Emilson) partners to investigate how different "suites" of forestry best management practices impact mercury transport from terrestrial systems, methylmercury formation and bioaccumulation in nearby aquatic ecosystems. Research approaches are varied and include a mixture of fieldwork, laboratory experimentation and modelling.
The group has done some interesting work on this subject in the past, but there are many, many interesting problems still to tackle. For an idea of this kind of work, below are a few recent, selected papers published by our group about forestry and mercury pollution:
Huang, H.; Mackereth, R.W.; Mitchell, C.P.J. (2024) Impacts of forest harvesting on mercury concentrations and methylmercury production in boreal forest soils and stream sediment. Environmental Pollution, 341, 122966.
Lam, W.Y.; Mackereth, R.W.; Mitchell, C.P.J. (2024) Mercury concentrations and export from central Canadian boreal forest headwater catchments before, during and after forest harvest. Science of the Total Environment, 912, 168691.
McCarter, C.P.R.; Sebestyen, S.D.; Eggert, S.L.; Kolka, R.K.; Mitchell, C.P.J. (2022) Effects of forest harvesting and residual biomass harvesting on hillslope mercury mobilization and downgradient mercury accumulation. Journal of Geophysical Research – Biogeosciences, e2022JG006826.