Elsevier

Geoderma

Volume 29, Issue 1, January 1983, Pages 67-75
Geoderma

A graphical estimation of the normal lead content of some British soils

https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-7061(83)90031-9Get rights and content

Abstract

Soil Pb values were examined from four areas of England and Wales where mining once caused environmental pollution. The % cumulative frequency distributions of the log10 Pb contents for each area were plotted on probability graph paper. A lower, linear portion of each curve was identified and separated and was interpreted as a lognormal population derived from non-contaminated soils. From the linear elements of the four graphs the geometric means and geometric deviations were calculated from which it was concluded that uncontaminated soils are unlikely to contain more than 110 mg Pb per kilogram dry soil and average soil Pb is 42 mg/kg. These results are compared with literature reports of the Pb content of soil.

References (17)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (61)

  • Soil contamination in China: Current priorities, defining background levels and standards for heavy metals

    2019, Journal of Environmental Management
    Citation Excerpt :

    UK Pb median values were ~40 mg/kg, against a Chinese median of 24 mg/kg. This might be explained by the UK's long history and density of Pb mining and inefficient smelting operations (Davies, 1983). All elements were analyzed in different environments, classified according to Land Class and eighteen broad habitats and major soil groups and Countryside Vegetation System Aggregate Vegetation Class.

  • Physicochemical properties of an acid ultisol subjected to different tillage practices and wood-ash amendment: Impact on heavy metal concentrations in soil and Castor plant

    2019, Soil and Tillage Research
    Citation Excerpt :

    This is in tandem with the earlier report by Ezeaku (2012). Davies (1983) observed that cultivated crops take up heavy metals as mobile ions present in the soil solution. Heavy metal concentration excess of critical limits could have agronomic and environmental implications and this could be a major source of concern to environmentalists and particularly farmers, who put the land into intensive crop cultivation as is the case in the study area.

  • Effect of soil properties on the toxicity of Pb: Assessment of the appropriateness of guideline values

    2015, Journal of Hazardous Materials
    Citation Excerpt :

    Although it is one of the less mobile heavy metals, lead is easily accumulated in plants when bioavailable [1]. Its average concentration in the Earth’s crust is 16 mg kg−1 [2], whereas natural uncontaminated soils have a mean value of 40 mg kg−1 [3]. Due to its low mobility, Pb tends to accumulate mainly in the top soil layers [4].

  • Critical evaluation of soil contamination assessment methods for trace metals

    2012, Science of the Total Environment
    Citation Excerpt :

    In consideration of the positively skewed data distribution, robust estimators such as the “median + 2 median absolute deviation”, the “upper inner fence” of whisker-and-boxplots or other graphical methods have been found to be more appropriate. A simple graphical method is loglog probability plots to determine the upper break of frequency distributions as a limit between natural and contaminated data populations (Davies, 1983; Fleischhauer and Korte, 1990; Tobias et al., 1997). The major problem is the visual determination of the upper break on a loglog graph, which is strongly subjective and not objectively traceable (Keller and Desaules, 2001).

  • Lead concentrations in environmental media relevant to human lead exposures

    2011, Trace Metals and other Contaminants in the Environment
    Citation Excerpt :

    These means were quite close to the arithmetic mean of 20 ppm reported for Canadian nonagricultural soils by McKeague and Wolynetz (1980). Rural soils in the United Kingdom were reported to have geometric means of 42 ppm (Davies, 1983) and 48 ppm (McGrath, 1986). There is a global literature on the topic of lead contamination of soils, particularly for industrialized countries.

View all citing articles on Scopus
View full text