3. TEOTIL Metals
The methodology currently used in Norway to estimate metal fluxes for OSPAR reporting is simplistic: the inputs from all point discharges in each main catchment are added together, and this total is assumed to reach the sea. This approach ignores key processes such as internal cycling and catchment-level retention, as well as failing to account for diffuse inputs, which are significant.
The eight metals of interest in this report exhibit a range of behaviours in the natural environment, some of which are quite different to N and P. For this reason, development of TEOTIL Metals requires identifying key datasets and relationships capable of summarising sub-catchment-level metal inputs and retention.