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High concentration of heavy metals caused by soil pollution processes vary in a three-dimensional space. This study focuses on a strip of land which was sampled at three different depths. Fuzzy classification by fuzzy k-means was used to analyze the spatial variability for each separate layer. The concentrations of heavy metals showed abrupt changes in geographical space and the coefficients of variation...
Robust estimators of the variogram can be used to identify a random function that describes the background variation of a soil property with the minimum influence of contaminants from a quasi point process. A method is proposed to exploit this to identify data which are best treated as a realization of a quasi point process rather than of a continuous random function for purposes of spatial analysis...
Organochlorine compounds were dumped by chemical industries during the 1970s in many areas of the coastal plain of Sao Paulo state in Brazil. These dumps, located on hillsides and in valleys, in both rural and urban environments, are responsible for soil and water pollution. The objective of this work was to determine how the pollutants have spread in an area occupied by a spodosol-type soil mantle...
Soils contaminated with heavy metals also contain a number of organic ligands, particularly in the rhizosphere and thus, a fraction of the bioavailable metals in soils likely exists in a complexed form. The presence of soluble, metal-complexing organic ligands can influence the fate and transport of metals as well as mineralisation of organic compounds. Oxalate and citrate complexed with Cd, Cu, Mg,...
Fuzzy classification combined with spatial prediction was used to assess the state of soil pollution in Isfahan region, central Iran. Total concentrations of cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), and cobalt (Co) were determined in 255 topsoil samples (0–20 cm) collected irregularly in a study area of 6800 km 2 . Heavy metals concentrations were grouped into four classes according...
Distinguishing between different sources of potentially toxic elements in soils can be difficult. This paper describes an application of principal component analysis (PCA) to distinguish between geogenic enrichment and anthropogenic pollution with Be, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn at 14 localities in Northern and North-eastern Czech Republic. Element speciation, profile distribution, and local...
This work seeks to establish the geochemical background for three potentially toxic trace elements (Zn, Cd and Hg) in a pilot zone included in the DesertNet project in the province of Murcia, and subjected to intense anthropic activity. The possible relationship between soil properties and element concentrations has been studied. Although the results showed that no such relationship existed, the concentration...
A series of incubation and leaching experiments were performed to assess the feasibility of two industrial by-products (phosphogypsum —PG— and sugar foam —SF—, rich in gypsum and calcium carbonate, respectively) to reduce the potential leachability of As, Cd, and Tl in an acidic soil. The effectiveness of the treatments (SF and PG+SF) was evaluated in response to the addition of a chelating agent...
The mobility and phytoavailability of arsenic in an area affected by the abandoned exploitation of an arsenical tungsten–tin deposit was studied to establish the current and eventual environmental risks and to propose possible remediation practices. Soil and plant samples were collected at different distances from the polluting sources and analyzed for their As content and distribution. Critical soil...
A methodology is suggested to measure the aperture and estimate the hydraulic properties of desiccation and tectonic fractures in heterogeneous soils. The aperture of desiccation fractures is quantified by the fluctuating distance between two opposite faces and is modelled as a network of parallel plates of variable opening. The aperture of tectonic fractures is modeled as a 2-dimensional network...
Effects of long term Hg contamination and addition of Hg 2+ on soil CH 4 oxidation were investigated in laboratory incubation experiments. Non‐contaminated soils had CH 4 oxidation rate constants (k) between 5.2 and 24.5×10 −3 h −1 , whereas Hg contaminated soils had rates ranging from 2.4 to 8.0×10 −3 h −1 . Specific oxidation rates (qK=k/C...
The results of a surface geochemical and geoelectrical survey carried on around gas wells drilled in the vicinity of Sucha Beskidzka town (Western Carpathians, southern Poland) are presented. The study area includes three wells located 8–10m apart, from which one has already been plugged and abandoned (P&A). In this area 46 soil gas samples were collected from a depth of 1.2m below the surface...
An area affected by the long-term weathering of sphalerite-bearing mine wastes was studied in order to assess the environmental fate and behaviour of different toxic elements occurring in this mineral. Soil and plant samples were collected at different distances from the polluting sources and analysed for the content and distribution of Zn, Cd and Tl. Soils are highly polluted with Zn and Cd, reaching...
Mercury (Hg) solubility and reactivity in soils at two extremely contaminated ancient small scale cinnabar roasting sites in the surroundings of the Hg mining area of Idrija (Slovenia) were determined in order to assess the mobility of Hg in the aqueous phase and to evaluate the extent of leaching of Hg into Idrijca River and further downstream. Water leaching experiments were performed on soil and...
This work develops spatial conditioned Latin hypercube sampling (scLHS), a novel advance on conditioned Latin hypercube sampling (cLHS) [Minasny and McBratney, Computers & Geosciences (2006) 1378–1388]. The difference between cLHS and scLHS is that the latter introduces variograms of ancillary variables into the objective function of the optimization procedure that selects sampling locations....
This study discovers and surveys sites left by former Zn–Pb mining in western Małopolska (S Poland), focusing on old heaps of mining waste rock located in agricultural land and suburban wasteland. Topsoil samples were taken from 73 heaps and described using many parameters, including heavy metal contamination (the content of total, EDTA-extractable, BaCl 2 -extractable and water-extractable...
So far, studies concerning the analyses of the soil magnetic susceptibility in the soil profile have been usually making use of classic statistics. The number of papers where spatial correlations of magnetic susceptibility were analyzed is still limited. In particular, the micro-scale spatial correlations have been rarely analyzed.The goal of this study was to analyze microscale spatial correlations...
This study examines total Hg, free Hg(0), matrix-bound Hg and MeHg contents in soils and plant tissues from two old cinnabar mining sites (La Soterraña and Los Rueldos) in Asturias (Spain), as well as Hg transfer and translocation from soils to plants. The studied soils from both mines accumulated moderate to very high total Hg concentrations (36–1709mg·kg−1) but quite low available Hg contents (0...
This study aims to evaluate and compare the ability of elder, linden and pine for biomonitoring purposes in the zones affected by emissions from a copper smelter and the tailings ponds of open pit mines. Concentrations of Al, As, Cd, Cu, Fe, Pb and Zn were determined in foliar parts of plants and in soils.The effects of leaves/needles water washing on the concentrations of the studied elements were...
Metal(loid)s are common pollutants in soils, causing a significant toxicological risk to living organisms and to the ecosystems. Soil basal respiration (SBR) is broadly used as indicator of metal(loid) stress in polluted soils, although the correlation with toxicity gives in many cases contradictory results. In this paper, we study seven different soils with contrasting properties and with different...
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