Soil contamination by metals with high ecological risk in urban and rural areas
Autor: | Lrp Lima, F. L. B. da Silva, F. B. V. da Silva, C. W. A. do Nascimento, Paula Renata Muniz Araújo |
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Rok vydání: | 2016 |
Předmět: |
Environmental Engineering
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences Soil test Intensive farming Environmental engineering 010501 environmental sciences Contamination 01 natural sciences Soil contamination Urbanization Soil water Environmental Chemistry Environmental science Ecotoxicology Spatial variability General Agricultural and Biological Sciences 0105 earth and related environmental sciences |
Zdroj: | International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. 14:553-562 |
ISSN: | 1735-2630 1735-1472 |
Popis: | Industrial development, intensive agriculture and fast urbanization have caused the metal contents of soils to increase to many times the allowable limits. To assess this impact on urban and rural soils, we quantified the Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, Ni and Zn contents of 258 soil samples from the Recife metropolitan region (RMR). The objectives of the study were to estimate the probability of ecological risk, to determine the spatial pattern of the metals’ accumulation in the soil and to identify potential sources for the metals using a multivariate geostatistical approach. Mean concentrations of Zn, Cr, Pb, Cu, Ni and Cd in soils were 65.2, 17.9, 16.5, 12.8, 6.3 and 1.5 mg kg−1, respectively. The results demonstrated that the Cd was anthropogenic in origin, the Cr and Ni were lithogenic (natural) in origin and the Cu, Pb and Zn were mixed in origin. Cd contaminated 91% of the samples; the median content of Cd (1.4 mg kg−1) was three times the quality reference value for soil. The Cd contents of sugarcane fields exceeded the allowable limit (3.0 mg kg−1) for agricultural areas. The spatial variability of the metals in the RMR showed that metallurgy, cement production, vehicle exhaust and vehicular traffic were the main sources of metals in urban areas, while phosphate-based fertilizers were the main sources in rural areas. More than 80% of the metropolitan region surveyed in the study was at moderate to high ecological risk. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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