Scholarly record

ASSESSMENT OF HEAVY METAL POLLUTION IN SURFACE SOILS OF URBAN AREAS

Assoc. prof. Vladimir Adamec, Dipl. Eng. Pavel Bulejko, Barbora Schullerova, Ph.D., MSc. Lucie Simonika

Abstract

In the recent decades, environmental pollution has been one of the major interesting research subjects where pollution might have a direct influence on public health and possibly cause serious and irretrievable damage to the Earth. The aim was to determine the levels of the heavy metals, Cu, Zn, Cr, Cd, Pb and Ni, in soil of urban areas in the city of Brno (Czech Republic). Soil analysis was performed on urban soil from the same layer, where the soil samples come from the depth of 20 cm. These samples were taken from roadside soil with high traffic intensity. Soil samples were taken in 1992, 2002, 2006 and 2013 from different soil profile layers and consequently analyzed using standard chemical procedures (ICP-OES). The obtained results indicate that no statistically significant changes occurred. In 2013, a decrease in selected elements was detected. An exception is Ni with a significant difference between Ni pairs from years 1991 пїЅ 2013 and 2002-2013. Due to this fact, regular soil monitoring is recommended in the future.

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