Lead contamination of roadside soils and plants in the highways between Istanbul and Sakarya, NW Turkey

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the concentrations of lead in roadside topsoil and plants in roadside from two highways (TEM and D100) connecting Istanbul and Sakarya in the NW of Turkey. The concentrations of lead were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry (Perkin Elmer SIMAA 6000). Lead analyses showed that there was a considerable contamination in both soil and plants (corn shoot). The concentration of lead in the roadside soil and the plants were influenced by the traffic intensity. The mean lead concentrations in soils from TEM and D 100 were 110.12 mg/kg and 137.07 mg/kg, respectively. The average lead values in roadside corn shoots at TEM and D100 are 15.84 mg/kg and 39.22 mg/kg, respectively. The Pb concentrations of roadside soil and plant at D100 were higher than that of TEM. This could be the result of higher accumulation time of lead in D100, since it was built earlier than TEM. The Pb levels assessed in this study can be considered as toxic.