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Arsenic and mercury in agricultural and natural gas rich environment in Croatia

Northern part of Panonian plain in Croatia is a traditional agricultural region rich in natural gas. Coexistence of agriculture and energy is simply essential and sustainable for stakeholders. Central gas station (CGS) of natural gas borehole system Podravina is located nearby village Molve. Natural gas is not a pure product when gas is extracted from a field under supercritical conditions (high p/Pa and T/°C), it may contain harmful and corrosive components such as CO2, H2S, RHS, Hg0 etc. In CGS, natural gas is collected, treated, purified and distributed to consumers. For the past eighteen years, scientists within multidisciplinary research team monitor its influence on air, water, soil, plants, forests, animals (wild and domestic), included humans. Since 1991, on carefully selected representative locations in CGS, environment, soil and plant, quality monitoring has been made by the University of Zagreb. This paper presents results of total arsenic and mercury contents in soil surface layer for different soil types in CGS environment for 12 years monitoring period. We observed that in some soil types (Glaysol vertics and Glaysols clayic), total arsenic concentrations in surface layer (0-3 cm) were, in some sampling periods, higher than maximal acceptable content (MAC) according to the Croatian legislation for agricultural soils. In some sampling periods, higher than natural concentrations of mercury in the surface layers of soil were observed only inside – in the yard of the gas plant on Technosol urbic.

agriculture; arsenic; Croatia; mercury; natural gas processing; soil quality

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