engleski

Lead, zinc, nickel and mercury in soil along roads sides and of some rural and urban parts of Zagreb, Croatia

In the last few years pollution monitoring of aquatic, soil and atmospheric environments of Zagreb has become a major subject of geochemical research. Detailed studies of heavy metal pollution in wider area of Zagreb are currently performed. As a test for analytics and range of concentrations, preliminary investigation along two, approximately perpendicular traverses over urban and industrial areas of Zagreb were executed and compared with data obtained from soil samples of rural and afforested areas surrounding Zagreb. Mercury was analysed by a modified flameless atomic absorption method combined with pyrolysis, while content of lead, zinc and nickel was measured by standard AAS techniques after acid digestion. Severe anthropogenic influence was observed in the case of lead for which in urban areas seven times higher content (224 ppm) than the average background values (33 ppm) in rural areas was encountered. Zinc is almost three times augmented from an average background level of 66 ppm to 180 ppm in urban areas. Mercury content is doubled (121 ppb) in comparison to the background values (52 ppb), while nickel shows only slight influence of anthropogenic pollution and only a 20 per cent increase over the background level (from 26 ppm to 32 ppm). The obtained data confirm that Zagreb encounters pollution problems.

Lead; Zinc; Nickel; Mercury; Soil; Environmental pollution; Traffic; Zagreb

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