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HEAVY METAL CONCENTRATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF SNOW AND LICHEA SAMPLES IN URBAN AREA: CASE STUDY OF JELGAVA

Jovita Pilecka

Abstract

Industrialization and urbanization have led to environmental contamination with heavy metals worldwide. In urban environment, the large inputs of anthropogenic contaminants in atmosphere are arising from mobile sources and stationary sources.Taking samples from all depth of snow, data can be obtained from persistent snow cover to the sampling time. Snow samples were collected in each sampling plot taking from 1.0 to 1.5 kg of snow. The average depth of snow was between 6 and 10 cm. The aim of study was to determine the distribution of heavy metals in Jelgava city. In this study the pollution level of the snow cover in Jelgava during the January and February of 2017 after the 7 days exposition had been investigate. Cu, Pb, Mg, Na, Fe, Zn, Al and Mn were determined in 120 samples of snow and 60 samples of lichens (Xanthoria parietina) from urban areas and 6 reference samples of snow and 3 samples of lichens (Xanthoria parietina) from natural forest. The concentration of heavy metals was estimated in the melted snow water and HNO3 solution and mineralised lichens in HNO3 and H2O2 solution using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) method. The heavy metal concentration data were analysed using agglomerative hierarchical clustering method. The results show three groups of samples: the first group characterise points close to railway and industrial territories, the second group of samples characterise transit roads with intensive urbanisation and the third group include clean forest sample and all open areas in Jelgava city.

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