Tracking the history of cultural eutrophication in High Arctic waterbodies ...

• Main Authors: Gallant, Lauren, Kimpe, Linda, Hargan, Kathryn, Blais, Jules
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: My University 2020
• Subjects: paleolimnology; sterols; metals; sewage; isotopes; Arctic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.20381/ruor-29170; https://ruor.uottawa.ca/handle/10393/44964

Human activities can greatly affect the chemical and biological composition of High Arctic lakes that otherwise receive only sparse inputs from their watersheds and airsheds. Here we present a study of three High Arctic waterbodies in which wastewater from an airport was released over the span of several decades. Using sediment cores from these waterbodies, we reconstructed the history of wastewater inputs using a multiproxy approach consisting of sterols, stanols, metals, and stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen. This multi-proxy approach showed good concordance between 15N, coprostanol (a stanol specific to human fecal sources), cholesterol, and cholestanol, which tracked the known history of human wastewater deposition to this High Arctic environment. Concentrations of plant derived sterols, such as campesterol and sitosterol, increased at the time of wastewater input, presumably due to increased plant growth stimulated by wastewater nutrients. Metal(loid)s normalized to titanium showed copper and lead ...