Heavy Metals Concentration in Urban Soils of Fallujah City, Iraq

Abstract

Twenty samples were collected from the urban soils in Fallujah City in order to determine concentrations, spatial distribution and contamination assessment of heavy metals such as Cu, Zn, Ni, Pb, Ni, Fe, Mn, Cd, Co and Cr. The mean concentrations are as follows : 235.77μg/g for Fe, 24.09μg/g for Mn, 11.59μg/g for Cr, 8.96μg/g for Ni, 5.50μg/g for Zn, 3.82μg/g for Pb, 3.43μg/g for Co , 2.01μg/g for Cu and 0.64μg/g for Cd. To assess metal contamination in urban soils, soil quality guidelines were applied. The mean concentration of Cu, Zn, Ni, Pb, Ni, Fe, Mn, Co and Cr did not exceed and Cd exceeded the USEPA guideline. A similar spatial distribution patterns between the heavy metals were found indicating that these metals were from the same sources. The metal contamination in the soils was also evaluated by appling enrichment factor (EF), pollution load index (PLI), integrated pollution load index (IPLI) and geoaccumulation index (Igeo). Based on enrichment factor (EF) , the urban soils in Fallujah city are extremely high enriched with Cd and Co, very high enriched with Ni and Cr and Pb, Cu and Zn exhibit significant enrichment. to IPLI values, urban soils in Fallujah are lowly polluted with heavy metals. According to Igeo, the urban soils in Fallujah City are uncontaminated to slightly contaminated by Cd. The sources of Cd in soil may be from industrial and anthropogenic activities.