20th century urban changes in the land-to-ocean fluvial transport of trace metals

Abstract

In 1972, The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment acknowledges that humankind has reached a development stage with the capacity to transform the environment ‘in countless ways and on an unprecedented scale’ (United Nations, 1972). This assumption has led to include the environmental sustainability between the Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2000), nowadays specified in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development goals and targets (United Nations, 2015). The aforementioned ‘countless ways’ are characterized mainly by numerous local events combined in a global impact, particularly after the mid-20th century when ‘is there clear evidence for fundamental shifts in the state and functioning of the Earth System that are beyond the range of variability of the Holocene and driven by human activities’ (Steffen et al. 2015: 81)