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Review
. 2020 Mar 20:709:136125.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.136125. Epub 2019 Dec 18.

The pollution conveyed by urban runoff: A review of sources

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Free article
Review

The pollution conveyed by urban runoff: A review of sources

Alexandra Müller et al. Sci Total Environ. .
Free article

Abstract

Urban stormwater and snowmelt pollution contributes significantly to the deterioration of surface waters quality in many locations. Consequently, the sources of such pollution have been studied for the past 50 years, with the vehicular transportation sector and the atmospheric deposition identified early as the major pollution sources. In search for mitigation of this pollution, source controls, besides other measures, were recognised as effective pollution mitigation tools, whose successful implementation requires a good knowledge of pollution sources. Even though great research efforts have been exerted to document specific sources of urban runoff pollution, or specific groups of pollutants present in urban runoff, a comprehensive overview of all known contributing sources is still missing. This review contributes to closing this gap by compiling findings of previous research and critically synthesizing the current knowledge of various stormwater pollution sources. As the emphasis is placed on the sources, the related issues of implications for urban surface water quality and possible source controls for individual sources are touched upon just briefly, where required. The review showed that the atmospheric deposition, vehicular transportation-related activities and metallic building envelopes continue to be among the major pollution sources, which have been studied in a far greater detail than other sources. Furthermore, it was noted that because of the rapid advances in clean manufacturing and pollution control technologies, a large part of the body of data on stormwater quality available in the literature should be considered as historical data, which may no longer describe well the current conditions. Progressing historical data obsolescence, combined with continuing releases of new materials and chemicals, and, in some cases of new substances of potential concern, into the environment, suggests that the identification of important stormwater runoff/snowmelt pollution sources, and the associated pollutants, has been and will remain to be a work in progress.

Keywords: Emerging pollutants; Snowmelt quality; Source controls; Stormwater quality; Urban diffuse pollution.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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