IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/caa/jnlswr/v12y2017i4id107-2016-swr.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessment of soil heavy metal pollution in a former mining area - before and after the end of mining activities

Author

Listed:
  • Lenka Demková

    (Department of Ecology, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences, University of Prešov, Prešov, Slovak Republic)

  • Tomáš Jezný

    (Department of Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Košice, Košice, Slovak Republic)

  • Lenka Bobuľská

    (Department of Ecology, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences, University of Prešov, Prešov, Slovak Republic)

Abstract

Toxicity and persistence of heavy metals, which are accumulated in the environment as the result of diverse industrial activities, represent serious environmental problem worldwide. The intense mineral extraction in mining areas has produced a large amount of waste material and tailings, which release toxic elements to the environment. The aim of the study was to determine in two time horizons (1997, 2015) the heavy metal contents of samples derived from ten sampling sites located in the former mining area of Central Spiš (Slovakia). In order to compare the level of contamination, the contamination factor (Cif), degree of contamination (Cd), and pollution load index (PLI) were computed. Spearman's correlation coefficient was used in order to detect the relationships among heavy metals. A serious situation was found for Hg, Zn, and Cd, which exceeded limit values at all sampling sites within both studied years. In 1997, the average values of contamination factor have shown very high contamination with all studied heavy metals, and moderate contamination with Co. In 2015, the study area was classified as very highly contaminated with As, Hg, Zn, Cu, considerably contaminated with Ni, Cr, Pb, and Cd, while Co contamination was not detected. Since 1997 till 2015 the pollution load index decreased by about 38%, nevertheless even then almost all sampling sites were classified as heavily polluted. Despite the fact that mining activities were stopped or limited at the beginning of the 21st century, the presence of heavy metals in soils remains at a serious level. The high level of contamination is a result of heavy metal persistence and non-biodegradability.

Suggested Citation

  • Lenka Demková & Tomáš Jezný & Lenka Bobuľská, 2017. "Assessment of soil heavy metal pollution in a former mining area - before and after the end of mining activities," Soil and Water Research, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 12(4), pages 229-236.
    • Handle: RePEc:caa:jnlswr:v:12:y:2017:i:4:id:107-2016-swr
    DOI: 10.17221/107/2016-SWR
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://swr.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/107/2016-SWR.html
    Download Restriction: free of charge
    File URL: http://swr.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/107/2016-SWR.pdf
    Download Restriction: free of charge
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17221/107/2016-SWR?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Asa Gholizadeh & Luboš Borůvka & Mohammad Mehdi Saberioon & Josef Kozák & Radim Vašát & Karel Němeček, 2015. "Comparing different data preprocessing methods for monitoring soil heavy metals based on soil spectral features," Soil and Water Research, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 10(4), pages 218-227.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Violeta Monica Radu & Anca Marina Vîjdea & Alexandru Anton Ivanov & Veronica Elena Alexe & George Dincă & Valentina Maria Cetean & Andra Elena Filiuță, 2023. "Research on the Closure and Remediation Processes of Mining Areas in Romania and Approaches to the Strategy for Heavy Metal Pollution Remediation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(21), pages 1-20, October.
    2. María Custodio & Daniel Álvarez & Walter Cuadrado & Raúl Montalvo & Salomé Ochoa, 2020. "Potentially toxic metals and metalloids in surface water intended for human consumption and other uses in the Mantaro River watershed, Peru," Soil and Water Research, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 15(4), pages 237-245.
    3. Bryan Salgado-Almeida & Arián Briones-Escalante & Daniel Falquez-Torres & Karla Filián-Haz & Fredy Guzmán-Martínez & Kenny Escobar-Segovia & Elizabeth Peña-Carpio & Samantha Jiménez-Oyola, 2024. "Assessment of Environmental Pollution and Risks Associated with Tailing Dams in a Historical Gold Mining Area of Ecuador," Resources, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-16, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yi Liu & Tiezhu Shi & Zeying Lan & Kai Guo & Dachang Zhuang & Xiangyang Zhang & Xiaojin Liang & Tianqi Qiu & Shengfei Zhang & Yiyun Chen, 2024. "Estimating the Soil Copper Content of Urban Land in a Megacity Using Piecewise Spectral Pretreatment," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-21, April.
    2. Yi Liu & Tiezhu Shi & Yiyun Chen & Zeying Lan & Kai Guo & Dachang Zhuang & Chao Yang & Wenyi Zhang, 2024. "Monitoring the Soil Copper of Urban Land with Visible and Near-Infrared Spectroscopy: Comparing Spectral, Compositional, and Spatial Similarities," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-19, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:caa:jnlswr:v:12:y:2017:i:4:id:107-2016-swr. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ivo Andrle (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cazv.cz/en/home/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.