Tabacarie Lake – a model of urban pollution

Abstract. Tabacarie coastal lake has been surrounded, during the past century, by the fast developing city of Constanta. Consequently, the lake has directly suffered from human interventions, such as dredging, embankments and heavy pollution. The lake surface sediments are generally fine grained: clayey silts and silts, with sands appearing only on dredged bottoms. The review of the chemical composition of upper sediments pointed out the presence of large quantities of certain heavy metals, in particular: Zn, Ba, Cu and Pb, dispersed, mainly, near the discharge points of rainwater pipes