Chemical analysis of transplanted aquatic mosses and aquatic environment during a fish kill on the Chungnang river, Seoul, Korea

Abstract

In mid‐April, 2000, hundreds of thousands of fish floated dead on the Chungnang River, one of the small branches of the Han River in Seoul. We examined the causes of the accident in detail, through analysis of monitoring data from the Han River Monitoring Project, which employed the transplanted aquatic moss, Fontinalis antipyretica. This allowed investigation of another possible cause of the fish kill: release of trace metals into the river from industrial sources during the rainfall event. In addition, we aimed to verify the usefulness of aquatic mosses as bioindicators of the event. Water samples collected 48 h after the fish kill exhibited low pH and high Total‐N and Total‐P, indicating that acidic compounds rich in nitrogen and phosphorus might be a major contaminant. BOD and COD were also very high. On the whole, the conditions of the river water were degraded at that time. Distinct trends were not observed in the chlorophyll phaeophytinization quotient and photosynthesis rate of transplanted mosses. However, mosses sampled soon after the accident exhibited the lowest values for those variables (p < 0.01), suggesting that stress factors in the river were diluted out over time. Heavy metals with characteristics of industrial effluents (Cr, Pb, Zn, Fe, Cu, and Cd) increased (p < 0.01), indicating that they were unlikely to be major causes of the accident.