KEYNOTE: Assessing anthropogenic impacts on urban environments in the UK through soil geochemistry

Urban inhabitants account for over half of the world's population, increasing annually by ca. 2%, it is expected that more than 2 billion people will join the current urban population over the next 30 years. Multiple global... [ view full abstract ]

Urban inhabitants account for over half of the world's population, increasing annually by ca. 2%, it is expected that more than 2 billion people will join the current urban population over the next 30 years. Multiple global organisations recognise the importance of the urban environment to human health, attributing an estimated 20% of all deaths in the European region to urban dwelling.

Urban pollution has a detrimental impact on soil chemistry with many cities suffering from poor soil quality. Urban populations are exposed to soil through re-suspension of dusts into the air column, back tracking of soils into homes, hand to mouth contact in gardens/ allotments/play areas and consumption of home-grown vegetables.

In 1993, the Geochemical Baseline Survey Of The Environment (G-BASE) rural geochemical mapping programme was extended to include sampling in urban areas and to date around 22 urban centers have been sampled including a detailed survey of over 6000 soils from London. Data is available on key inorganic contaminants including Cr, Cu, Cd, Ni, As, Pb, Zn, Sn and Sb .

A source apportionment approach has been applied to a number of cities including London, Nottingham, Leicester and Derby which has resulted in a quantified identification and separation of anthropogenic inputs from the underlying geogenic sources. A comparison of the chemical composition of these sources from the different cities has been linked to current and historical industrial use. The results of a preliminary investigation of the effect of soil geochemistry on the human deprivation will be reported.