Purpose

This review of sediment source fingerprinting assesses the current state-of-the-art, remaining challenges and emerging themes. It combines inputs from international scientists either with track records in the approach or with expertise relevant to progressing the science.

Methods

Web of Science and Google Scholar were used to review published papers spanning the period 2013–2019, inclusive, to confirm publication trends in quantities of papers by study area country and the types of tracers used. The most recent (2018–2019, inclusive) papers were also benchmarked using a methodological decision-tree published in 2017.

Scope

Areas requiring further research and international consensus on methodological detail are reviewed, and these comprise spatial variability in tracers and corresponding sampling implications for end-members, temporal variability in tracers and sampling implications for end-members and target sediment, tracer conservation and knowledge-based pre-selection, the physico-chemical basis for source discrimination and dissemination of fingerprinting results to stakeholders. Emerging themes are also discussed: novel tracers, concentration-dependence for biomarkers, combining sediment fingerprinting and age-dating, applications to sediment-bound pollutants, incorporation of supportive spatial information to augment discrimination and modelling, aeolian sediment source fingerprinting, integration with process-based models and development of open-access software tools for data processing.

Conclusions

The popularity of sediment source fingerprinting continues on an upward trend globally, but with this growth comes issues surrounding lack of standardisation and procedural diversity. Nonetheless, the last 2 years have also evidenced growing uptake of critical requirements for robust applications and this review is intended to signpost investigators, both old and new, towards these benchmarks and remaining research challenges for, and emerging options for different applications of, the fingerprinting approach.

中文翻译：

---

沉积物来源指纹识别：对近期产出、剩余挑战和新兴主题进行基准测试

目的

本次沉积物来源指纹识别综述评估了当前的最新技术、仍然存在的挑战和新出现的主题。它将国际科学家的意见与该方法的跟踪记录或与科学进步相关的专业知识结合起来。

方法

Web of Science 和 Google Scholar 用于审查 2013 年至 2019 年（含）期间发表的论文，以确认按研究地区国家和所用示踪剂类型划分的论文数量的发表趋势。最近（2018-2019 年，含）的论文也使用 2017 年发布的方法决策树进行了基准测试。

范围

审查了需要进一步研究和就方法细节达成国际共识的领域，其中包括示踪剂的空间变异性和对最终成员的相应采样影响、示踪剂的时间变异性以及对最终成员和目标沉积物的采样影响、示踪剂保护和基于知识的预选、来源辨别的物理化学基础以及向利益相关者传播指纹识别结果。还讨论了新兴主题：新型示踪剂、生物标记物的浓度依赖性、沉积物指纹识别和年龄测定相结合、沉积物结合污染物的应用、纳入支持性空间信息以增强辨别和建模、风成沉积物源指纹识别、

结论

沉积物来源指纹识别的普及在全球范围内持续呈上升趋势，但随之而来的是缺乏标准化和程序多样性的问题。尽管如此，过去两年也证明了对稳健应用程序的关键要求的接受日益增长，本次审查旨在为新老研究人员指明指纹识别的这些基准、剩余的研究挑战以及不同应用的新兴选择方法。