Heavy metals in sediment and soil: from geochemical background determination to pollution assessment
Abstract
Assessment of heavy metal pollution is a complex process because of the natural occurrence of heavy metals in the environment. Establishing the geochemical background concentrations to distinguish the natural background from anthropogenic concentrations is necessary to develop guidelines for environmental legislation. Due to the fact that the background concentrations depend strongly on geological characteristics such as mineral composition, grain size distribution and organic matter content, several normalization methods have been developed. Empirical (geochemical), theoretical (statistical) and integrated methods (combining both empirical and theoretical methods) are the main approaches described in literature for determination of geochemical background concentrations. In this review paper, these different approaches as well as the main normalization methods will be discussed. Both geochemical background concentrations and added risk level (Maximum Permissible Addition) should be taken into account for setting up legal threshold limit. Moreover, different approaches to evaluate the pollution status of heavy metals in sediments and soil, from qualitative methods (Sediment Quality Guidelines) to quantitative methods (Geo-accumulation Index- Igeo, Enrichment Factor- EF, Pollution Load Index – PLI and Risk assessment Code – RAC) will be presented. Different approaches provide different data that ask for a different interpretation. However, the above mentioned quantitative…
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