Lead concentration in wet deposition results of a ten year time series in Salzburg, Austria

Since 1984 wet precipitation is sampled in Salzburg, Austria, by a wet only technique on a daily basis to get information about the seasonal and temporal trends of ionic concentrations and wet deposition loads. Today 4 sampling sites are operated being part of the Austrian wet precipitation network. Annual volume weighted mean concentrations of lead in wet precipitation have decreased from 4.3 to 2.8 mu g/l at Nussdorf (520 m a.s.l., 1984-1993), from 3.6 to 0.9 mu g/l at Werfenweng (940 m a.s.l., 1984-1993), from 2.6 to 1.8 mu g/l at Kolm Saigurn (1600 m a.s.l., 1990-1993) and from 5.0 to 1.9 mu g/l at Sonnblick (3106 m a.s.l., 1988-1993). The decrease of the lead concentration in wet precipitation is well correlated with the reduction of lead emissions due to combustion of leaded gasoline. The correlation coefficients for the 4 sampling sites range from 0.69 to 0.87, respectively. The highest deposition loads for lead in Salzburg are found at the Sonnblick sampling site with values between 70 and 29 g/ha (1988-1993) caused by the memorable precipitation depth at the high elevated site. The decadal reduction of the wet deposition load of lead in Central Austria is in the order of 50-70%.