In order to evaluate the current state of the environmental quality of soils in Beijing, we investigated contents of 14 metals in Beijing urban soils inside the 5th ring road by even grids sampling. Statistic analyses were conducted to identify possible heavy metal pollutants, as well as the effects of land uses on their accumulation. Our results revealed that the urban soils in Beijing were co...

PROJECT Golestan province, located in northeast of Iran, has been known as a high risk area for esophageal cancer (EC). This study was conducted to assess the relationship between soils selenium (Se) level and development of EC in this region. PROCEDURES In this ecological study, 135 blocks were identified in Golestan province based on geographical altitude and longitude on the map. One soil ...

Arsenic contamination in a large area of agricultural fields on the Guandu Plain of northern Taiwan was confirmed in a survey conducted in 2006, but research concerning the relationship between bioavailable As concentrations in contaminated soils and crop production in Taiwan is not available. Pot experiments were conducted to examine the growth and accumulation of As in four vegetable crops gr...

Reclaimed water irrigation can satisfy increasing water demand, but it may also introduce pharmaceutical contaminants into the soil and groundwater environment. In this work, a range of laboratory experiments were conducted to test whether biochar can be amended in soils to enhance removal of sulfamethoxazole (SMX) from reclaimed water. Eight types of biochar were tested in laboratory sorption ...

Although soils are considered as major carbon stores, rapid oxidation of soil organic carbon can contribute to CO2 evolution and global warming on a large scale. Generally, microbial and climatic factors are thought to be mainly responsible for such oxidative losses. Another probable factor is photodegradation by sunlight. Cultivated soils of the tropics are left barren for a greater part of th...

Chemical remediation has attracted increasing attention for heavy metal contaminated soils because of its relatively low cost and high efficiency. In this study laboratory incubation and column leaching experiments were conducted to understand the mechanisms of copper (Cu) immobilization by calcium water treatment residue (Ca-WTR) and to estimate the optimal rate for remediating Cu-contaminated...

Extensive use of chromium (Cr) and arsenic (As) based preservatives from the leather tanning industry in Pakistan has had a deleterious effect on the soils surrounding production facilities. Bacteria have been shown to be an active component in the geochemical cycling of both Cr and As, but it is unknown how these compounds affect microbial community composition or the prevalence and form of me...

The aim of the study was to demonstrate the impact of soil agricultural usage on the abundance of ammonifying bacteria (AB) and their activity, expressed as arginine ammonification (AA). Five agriculturally exploited types of soils (FAO): Haplic Luvisol, Brunic Arenosol, Mollic Gleysol, Eutric Fluvisol, and Rendzina Leptosol were studied. The controls were non-agricultural soils of the same typ...

Morera, M. T., Echeverría J. and Garrido, J. 2002. Bioavailability of heavy metals in soils amended with sewage sludge. Can. J. Soil Sci. 82: 433–438. The recycling of sewage sludge to agricultural land results in the slow accumulation of potentially toxic heavy metals in soils. A greenhouse experiment was conducted to determine the bioavailability of Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn applied to soils in urban...

Many organic pollutants such as pesticides are chlorinated organics, and until recently these were thought to be purely the product of anthropogenic activities. However, some chlorinated phenolics are now known to be part of the natural chemical make up of “pristine” soils, defined as those that have not previously been directly exposed to anthropogenic inputs, except through atmospheric contam...