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- Title
Enrichment of heavy metals in surface layers of urban soils.
- Authors
Peli, Marco; Barontini, Stefano; Bostick, Benjamin C.; Lucchini, Roberto G.; Ranzi, Roberto
- Abstract
For the last forty years (from 1974 to present), a ferroalloy industry has been working inBagnolo Mella (85ma.s.l.), a small city in the province of Brescia, Northern Italy. Thefactory produced, as a byproduct of the industrial process, particulate matter emissionsenriched in heavy metals: particularly manganese (Mn), and also lead (Pb), iron (Fe), nickel(Ni), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and arsenic (As). All these elements lead to potential toxiceffects as they contaminate life and work environments of the exposed population. Moreover,the active factory is located near residential areas in a vast plain characterized by little wind(dominated by the East–West feature) and shallow water table with a great number ofwater resurgences, thus threatening surface soil and water resources as well as thepopulation. Aiming at contributing to quantify the exposure of the population to environmentalheavy metal–pollution near the factory, and the heavy metals proneness to migratethrough the soil, we report the results of an investigation of metals concentrationsand speciation within the uppermost layers of the Earth Critical Zone of the studyarea. Four sites – where lawns have been maintained at least for some decades – were identifiedas representative of the plant influence, on the basis of data collected during a previousexperimental field campaign and of the local wind rose: three sites were chosen among themost prone ones to particulate matter deposition and one was chosen as a control site, in anupwind area, with respect to the plant. In the four sites, total soil metal concentrationswere measured by means of a portable X-Ray fluorescence device (pXRF) alongthe soil profiles, down to the depth of 30cm from the soil surface. Four loose soilsamples were also collected at each site at different depths, and they were subjected toa sequential extraction procedure. Their heavy metal content was measured byinductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (ICP–MS). Data were analyzedboth in their raw form and by applying the compositional data analysis (CoDA)approach, the analysis of variance (ANOVA), and principal component analysis(PCA). The profiles of the total metal concentration showed a metal accumulation in surface andsubsurface soil layers, and gave evidence of the plant activity consequences on the nearestand downwind sites. The recognized patterns are statistically meaningful (with p < 0.01)according to ANOVA, and PCA highlighted the predominant role of Mn in explaining mostof the variability across the four sites. The speciation profiles, besides describing loosely thesame observed patterns, show how the amorphous oxides species is always prevalent for Mnand Pb along the whole profile, while for Fe and As the species associated with crystallineoxides are always the prevalent ones. Finally it was observed that, when total Mn content isgreat, i.e. in the most enriched sites, sequential extractions cannot dissolve most of it.
- Subjects
NORTHERN Italy; URBAN soils; HEAVY metals; METALLIC surfaces; PARTICULATE matter; X-ray fluorescence; PRINCIPAL components analysis
- Publication
Geophysical Research Abstracts, 2019, Vol 21, p1
- ISSN
1029-7006
- Publication type
Article