Field Simulation of Cadmium Pollution of a Freshwater Body

Abstract

An experiment in mesocosms installed in a fish-rearing pond was used to adequately simulate the character of self-purification, migration, and the redistribution of cadmium and its chemical forms in major components of a freshwater ecosystem, into which this chemical is imported in concentrations far in excess of its MAC. The major portion of the imported cadmium was found to be removed from the water mass within a few days, mostly, as a component of particulate matter settling onto the bed, including dead plankton remains, as ion-exchange cadmium forms adsorbed by suspension (37%), and as forms associated with ferromanganese oxides (41%). The rate of cadmium removal from the water mass is determined both by the amount of particulate matter settling onto the bed and the efficiency of cadmium sorption by it, depending on the acid–alkaline and redox conditions in the water body.