Сontamination of urban soils with heavy metals in Moscow as affected by building development

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2018-09, Vol.636, p.854-863
• Main Authors: Kosheleva, Natalia E., Vlasov, Dmitry V., Korlyakov, Ilya D., Kasimov, Nikolay S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cities; Environmental Monitoring; Metals, Heavy - analysis; Moscow; Parameters of buildings; Residential area; Russia; Soil; Soil Pollutants - analysis; Soil pollution; Technogenic emissions, heavy metals and metalloids; Urban development
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.04.308

Building development in cities creates a geochemical heterogeneity via redistributing the atmospheric fluxes of pollutants and forming sedimentation zones in urban soils and other depositing media. However, the influence of buildings on the urban environment pollution is poorly understood. The aim of this study is to evaluate the barrier functions of urban development by means of a joint analysis of the contents of heavy metals and metalloids in the upper horizon of urban soils, their physicochemical properties, and the parameters of the buildings. The soil-geochemical survey was performed in the residential area of the Moscow's Eastern Administrative District (Russia). The parameters of the buildings near sampling points were determined via processing data from the OpenStreetMap database, 2GIS databases and GeoEye-1 satellite image. A high level of soil contamination with Cd, W, Bi, Zn, As, Cr, Sb, Pb, Cu was revealed, depending on building parameters. A protective function of the buildings for yards is manifested in the decreasing concentrations of As, Cd, Co, Cr, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sb, Sn, W by 1.2–3 times at distances of