engleski

Heavy metals alongside railway lines – review

Railway transport, in addition to its advantages, also has negative impacts on the environment. One is the emission of heavy metals (HMs) and their deposition in the soil. The highest measured mass concentrations occur in the topsoil in the vicinity of the rails, but some of the HMs are washed into groundwater ; with heavier precipitation, the surface runoff transfers the HMs to more distant areas. Some are also absorbed by plants and enter the food web, ultimately appearing in human food. Most HMs above certain concentrations are toxic to living organisms. With ecological and environmental concerns in mind, studies of HMs alongside railways in various countries of the world are compared. Emphasis is placed on the following topics: which chemical elements (HMs) occur as contaminants in the topsoil, and how distance from the rails and different managed areas alongside railway lines impact mass concentration of HMs in the soil. In general, there is not much published investigation on this issue in the scientific literature ; the greatest contributions are from Poland and China. In most papers, the environmental influence of fewer than 10 chemical elements is analysed, and the most common are Pb, Zn, Cu, Cd, Cr, Ni, Co and Mn.

railway transport ; pollution ; heavy metals

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