ИСТИНА

Water bodies almost always contain suspensions of different sizes. A decrease in the size of suspended particles leads to an increase in their specific surface area and an increase in their sorption capacity. Microparticles carry other components, including pollutants, bacteria and viruses. Depending on the chemical composition, both the microparticles themselves and the pollutants sorbed by them can be harmful to health. Microparticles do not, in practice, settle in the flow. The smaller the particle is, the longer will be the path of its migration, both in water and in biota. In recent years, there has been research into the contribution of both natural and anthropogenic microparticles to pollution transfer in the environment. However, there is a limited number of publications that address the processes of transport of pollutants by microparticles in surface water. We presented the first results of our study in 2020-2021: the contribution of microparticles to the transport of pollution by rivers and groundwater in Nizhny Novgorod, a large industrial Russian centre. Urban water bodies are subject to strong anthropogenic pollution from both point and diffuse sources. Together with the runoff of small urban rivers and groundwater, pollution enters the Volga. Water samples taken from water bodies were sequentially filtered, through filters with different pore sizes. Initial water samples taken, sequential filtrates, and filter cakes (Prodigy High Dispersion ICP, etc.) were all analysed. During the summer-autumn low-water period, at least half of the total transfer of priority pollutants in urban rivers is carried out by suspensions. About a quarter of the flow of these pollutants is associated with the transfer of microparticles with a size of 0.22-2 microns (for iron - about a third).