URBAN GEOCHEMICAL MAPPING MANUAL: Sampling, Sample preparation, Laboratory analysis, Quality control check, Statistical processing and Map plotting

SUMMARY

Given that the quality of the urban environment is a key issue in planning a healthy home, school, work, and recreational facilities, there is an urgent need to know the concentration of chemical elements and compounds, which are currently in our urban environment, and how they differ from the pre-urbanisation stage. Once we have defined the urban geochemical baseline, this will serve as the timeline for monitoring future changes. The produced results should be of high quality and integrity for multipurpose use, and be legally defensible as they are very sensitive environmental data, because they inform us about the chemical state of our living, work, and recreational environments, which affects our quality of life.

Sampling, is the most important part of urban geochemical mapping, as in any applied geochemical survey, and must be carried out with the utmost care. Any mistakes during this stage are difficult to trace and correct afterwards. Hence, this manual presents urban geochemical methodologies tested and tried around the world. By its nature, recommends what to do in order to standardise the approach to urban geochemical mapping across Europe, and the whole World, and not to keep reinventing the methodology, as this is a waste of time and resources.

The manual describes the procedures of

(i) sampling topsoil, subsoil, house dust, attic dust, road dust or sediment, air particulates and bio-indicators, including human tissues,

(ii) sample preparation,

(iii) laboratory analysis,

(iv) quality control,

(v) data conditioning, and

(vi) data processing and map plotting.

It stresses the necessity for the preparation of a reference sample or samples, before the start of the urban geochemical project, and that the collected samples must be prepared in just one laboratory, and analysed for the same suite of determinands in the same laboratory, following a strict quality control procedure.