U in German surface …... Manfred Birke,

………….and tap waters. Ewald Schnug

.... more than 45,000 pieces of plastic debrisfloat on every square mile of ocean..... *

* (Botham, N. (2005) The world´s greatest book of useless information. John Blake Publ. London, UK

Finally .....

... everything ends up in our water ...

Uranium in stream waterof the Federal Republic of Germany

Manfred Birke & Uwe Rauch

B4.15 Inorganic Geochemistry, Dr. M. Birke

Int. Symposium Protecting Water Bodies from Negative Impacts of Agriculture

Loads and Fate of Fertilizer Derived Uranium

4. - 6. June 2007

Uranium in stream water of the Federal Republic of Germany

B4.15 Inorganic Geochemistry, Dr. M. Birke

Frequency distribution of uranium in stream water (GeochemicalAtlas of Germany)

Stream water sampling site 696 (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern)

Methods and statistical parameters

Uranium in stream water of the Federal Republic of Germany

B4.15 Inorganic Geochemistry, Dr. M. Birke

Uranium in stream water (Geochemical Atlas of Germany, Birke et al. 2006)

Soil map of Germany (after BGR 2006)

Uranium in stream water of the Federal Republic of Germany

B4.15 Inorganic Geochemistry, Dr. M. Birke

Regional uranium distribution in stream water

>

Uranium in stream water of the Federal Republic of Germany

B4.15 Inorganic Geochemistry, Dr. M. Birke

Box plot of statistical values for U in stream water according to geology

Uranium in stream water of the Federal Republic of Germany

B4.15 Inorganic Geochemistry, Dr. M. Birke

Box plot of statistical values for U in stream waterflowing over various substrata

Box plot of statistical values for U in stream water according to land use

U in German tap watersEwald Schnug & Holger Lilienthal (FAL Braunschweig)

Nathalie Costa & Robert Kreuzig (TU Braunschweig) Broder Merkel (TU Freiberg)

Plasma torch

ICP-MS

Sampling

The survey covers water to which34% of the German population has access throug public tap supplies.

0.010 0.100 1.000 10.000Uranium [ppb] (n: 383)

0

2

4

6

8

10

Freq

uenc

y (%

)

0

20

40

60

80

100

Cum

ulat

ive

freq

uenc

y (%

)

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2.0Uranium [ppb] (n: 383)

0

4

8

12

Freq

uenc

y (%

)

0

20

40

60

80

100

Cum

ulat

ive

freq

uenc

y (%

)

Uranium in tap water (circles)over uranium in stream water (background)

Uranium (log) in tap water

Uranium (<2ppb) in tap water

Table . Mean, median (µg l-1 U) and percentiles (%) for uranium concentrations in different sets of drinking water samples

P38-survey wellwaters

P38-survey

tapwaters

German survey

tap waters

German bottled waters

European bottled waters

World bottled waters

n 48 39 383 241 384 485

Mean 0.87 0.18 0.46 3.34 3.45 3.17

Median < LLD < LLD 0.15 0.11 0.18 0.17

Minimum < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD

Maximum 8.95 1.44 8.54 474 474 474

Percentiles 10 < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD

20 < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD

25 < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD < LLD 0.01

30 < LLD < LLD < LLD 0.01 0.01 0.02

40 < LLD < LLD < LLD 0.05 0.05 0.06

50 < LLD < LLD 0.15 0.11 0.18 0.17

60 0.54 < LLD 0.27 0.26 0.47 0.43

70 0.68 < LLD 0.45 0.72 0.86 0.82

75 0.70 < LLD 0.59 1.29 1.18 1.15

80 1.12 0.06 0.71 2.00 1.96 1.83

90 2.32 0.95 0.99 5.64 5.22 4.47

German streamwaters

9440.900.33

< LLD43.7

Conclusions:

German surface water contains on an average twiceas much U than tap water.

Geology has a strong influence on U concentrationsin surface and tap water.

In areas with low natural U background an influenceof agricultural land use is evident.

Thank you for your attention!