Anthropogenic rare earth element fluxes into floodplains: Coupling between geochemical monitoring and hydrodynamic sediment transport modelling

Abstract

As all rare earth elements (REEs) have an increasingly important role in high tech industries, they are now recognized as emergent pollutants in river systems impacted by anthropogenic activity. Over the past 20. years, significant anthropogenic contributions were reported for Gd, La and Sm, and we may expect that REE contamination in rivers is to further increase in a near future. Despite the work done to assess the environmental impact of REE pollutions in larger river systems, we are still lacking information on the dynamics of these anthropogenic compounds in relation to hydrological changes. Here, we observed for the first time particulate Ce originating from local industrial activities in Luxembourg and we quantified the anthropogenic contribution to the REE fluxes at the river basin scale during a single flood event.