Reply to the comments on "A novel approach to peatlands as archives of total cumulative spatial pollution loads from atmospheric deposition of airborne elements complementary to EMEP data: Priority pollutants (Pb, Cd, Hg)" by V. De Vleeschouwer et al.

Abstract In the comments by De Vleeschouwer et al. (2020) on a recent paper by Miszczak et al. (2020), two major issues were critically discussed: (1) the behavior of lead in ombrotrophic peatlands, with particular regard to the possible lead vertical mobility/immobility; (2) lead data use to accurately reconstruct historical contamination. The authors stated that “some of the conclusions reached by Miszczak et al. (2020) are based on misinterpretation or incorrect sampling and data analyses approaches”. A reply to comments emphasises that these topics are not an issue of the paper. Its major idea was to use the unique natural systems (that are ombrotrophic peat bogs) as complete and reliable inventories for the assessment of cumulative loads of airborne element deposition independently upon its chronology. The results of a study conducted on ten ombrotrophic peat bogs in Norway and Poland showed a striking quantitative precision of such assessment. This has led to the idea of including ombrotrophic peat bogs into the EMEP network as tools for the completion of spatial distribution data on the fugitive element deposition. It would be helpful if a bigger number of experienced and widely recognized researchers take part in such project. Simultaneously, the analysis of source data, own results and case studies makes clear that the information regarding ombrotrophic peat properties is still insufficient to reconstruct precisely the chronology of metal contamination records, despite the development of high resolution sampling and analytical techniques and interpretational approaches. The clarification of some seemingly biased records would help to elucidate unexplained or unusual lead behavior in some outstanding cases. These cases demonstrate also that despite over 40 years of studies there are still the substantial gaps in our knowledge that need to be filled up.