An analysis of heavy metals movements on soils from places with high level risk of flooding and different anthropogenic activities

Abstract

Tucumán is located in northwest Argentina. In the south of this province,near the Marapa River, there were many flooding events in the last 30 years.Heavy metals (HM) constitute an ill-defined group of inorganic chemical hazards,and those most commonly found at contaminated sites are lead (Pb),chromium (Cr),arsenic (As), zinc (Zn), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), and nickel (Ni).Soils are the major sink for heavy metals released into the environment byanthropogenic activities and their total concentration in soils persists for a long timeafter their introduction leading to accumulation.This work presents the soil characterization for heavy metals by ICP technique aftermade a sampling strategy using satellite imagery. The baseline was determinatewithout the influence of anthropogenic activities and flooding effects. Then,comparison between this baseline and sampling from flooding zones and principalanthropogenic activities are shown and discussed. Particularly high-levelconcentrations were found for Cu, Zn and Cr.