HEAVY METAL DYNAMICS ACROSS SOIL AND RIVER SEDIMENT ENVIRONMENTS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53555/env.v1i1.2576Keywords:
heavy metals, soil contamination, river sediment, watershed monitoring, environmental pollutionAbstract
Heavy metal contamination remains a significant environmental concern because of its persistence, mobility, and potential ecological impacts across interconnected terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. This study investigated heavy metal dynamics across soil and suspended river sediment environments within the Nurzec River catchment using a secondary environmental monitoring dataset collected between August 2021 and August 2022. The dataset comprised 1,240 analytical records, including 1,116 soil samples and 124 suspended river sediment samples, covering agricultural, pasture, and urban land-use categories. Concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, mercury, nickel, lead, and zinc were evaluated through descriptive statistical analysis, Pearson correlation analysis, spatial assessment, and geochemical contamination indices, including the Geo-accumulation Index (Igeo) and Enrichment Factor (EF). The results demonstrated distinct differences in heavy metal distribution between soil and suspended river sediment, with sediments exhibiting greater accumulation of several metals, indicating their important role in contaminant transport and deposition. Land-use variation further influenced heavy metal occurrence, while strong positive correlations among selected metals suggested common environmental sources and transport pathways. Contamination indices supported the identification of anthropogenic enrichment and pollution intensity across the study area. Overall, the findings highlight the importance of integrating soil and river sediment assessments to better understand heavy metal behaviour within watersheds. Such an integrated approach provides valuable information for environmental monitoring, pollution management, ecological risk assessment, and the development of sustainable watershed protection strategies.
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