Estimation of mercury wet deposition in the tributary sub-basins of the Negro river (Amazon-Brazil) using RS/GIS tools

Abstract
Recent studies have shown high concentrations of Hg in fish, soil, lakes and rivers of the Negro river basin. These concentrations were surprisingly high when considering the scarcity of anthropogenic point sources in the region (Fadini and Jardim, 2001). In order to investigate the role of wet deposition in the mercury biogeochemistry cycle in this basin, Hg deposition was estimated for 18 tributary sub-basins of the Negro river, covering an area of nearly 700,000 km ². Mercury wet deposition estimate was done by combining analytical data obtained from total Hg measurements in bulk precipitation (8 measurements between 1997 and 2002), Remote Sensoring (RS) and GIS (Geographie Information System) tools, with the help of orbital images from the JERS-1 SAR project (Global Rain Forest Mapping Project, South America-Amazon Basin), Amazon rainfall map (Sombroek, 2001) and SPRING (Geographie information of processing system) from INPE (Brazilian National Institute of Space Research). For each sub-basin, Hg wet deposition flux (ton km ^-2 yr ^-1) and the annual amount of Hg (ton yr ^-1) deposited on the area were estimated. The result allowed a clear picture of each sub-basins, by looking for a relation between the wet deposition, the drainage characteristics of each sub-basin and the Hg concentration in the water column.