Determination of Trace Elements Concentration in wet and dry Atmospheric Deposition and Surface soil in the Largest Industrial city, Southwest of Iran

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Environmental Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Khouzestan, Iran

2 Department of Environmental Science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Khouzestan, Iran

Abstract

Dry and wet atmospheric depositions as well as urban surface soil samples were collected in eight different land use zones (during 2010) of the most important and largest industrial city, southwest Iran for determining Cadmium, Chromium, Lead and Zinc. The average of Cd, Cr, Pb and Zn concentrations in the study area for wet precipitation were 17.8 μg/L, 49.97 μg/L, 2.31 μg/L, and 0.53 μg/L, respectively. Also, the mean levels of mentioned elements were 0.144 mg/m2.day, 0.457 mg/m2.day, 0.091 mg/m2.day, and 0.0017 mg/ m2.day, respectively in dry deposition samples. Moreover, the average amounts of Pb, Zn, Cr, and Cd were recorded for soil samples as a value of 64.2 mg/kg, 197.3 mg/kg, 61.24 mg/kg and 0.73 mg/kg. As a result, the trend of metal concentrations in all media were similar and decreased as Zn> Pb> Cr> Cd. The high contamination levels of heavy metals indicate that they have been significantly impacted from anthropogenic activities (nonferrous metal smelting, fossil fuel combustion, pit burning, gas flaring and traffic sources). According to analysis results, the significantly positively correlations between Cd-Pb, Pb-Zn and Zn-Cd were shown in all three environments.

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