The objective was to investigate how the vertical distribution of pollutants could be affected by episodic flood sedimentation in archives with high sedimentation rates. Concentrations of most heavy metals, normalized to lithogenic aluminium, revealed vigorous short-term variation related to floods, whose magnitude exceeds that of long-term trends. There is a substantial risk that temporal contamination trends. even if normalized to lithogenic elements, can be strongly influenced by facies, which may lead to potential misinterpretations. Element normalizing to MS, which proved to be a good proxy of grain size, provided smoother long-term trends whose interpretation was less affected by short-term variations. The long-term trends exhibit decreasing concentrations of most heavy metals for the last similar to 25 years, most notably between similar to 1987 and similar to 1992. These historical patterns correspond well to the significant improvement in environmental pollution reported elsewhere in Central Europe. In contrast, concentrations of Na have systematically increased up until the present, partly being driven by the widespread use of de-icing salt for winter road treatment.