Heavy metal contamination in street dust and roadside soil along the major national road in Kavala's region, Greece Achilleas Christoforidis a , Nikolaos Stamatis b, ⁎ a Technological Educational Institute, Department of Petroleum Technology and Natural Gas, 654 04 Kavala, Greece b National Agricultural Research Foundation, Fisheries Research Institute, 64007 N. Peramos, Greece abstract article info Article history: Received 15 December 2008 Received in revised form 8 April 2009 Accepted 12 April 2009 Available online 8 May 2009 Keywords: Heavy metals Pollution Street dust Roadside soil Greece A total of 96 street dusts and 96 roadside soils have been sampled from three different localities (urban, industrial, peripheral) of the city of Kavala (Greece) and analyzed for Pb, Cu, Zn, Ni, Cr, Cd, As and Hg using the atomic absorption spectrophotometric method. Results showed that dust and soil samples from the urban and industrial area contained significant levels of the metals studied compared to the values from the control site. The mean values for Pb, Cu, Zn, Ni, Cr, Cd, As and Hg in street dust were 300.9,123.9, 271.6, 57.5, 196.0, 0.2,16.7 and 0.1 μgg -1 respectively, whereas for roadside soil they were 359.4, 42.7,137.8, 58.2,193.2, 0.2, 62.3 and 0.1 μgg -1 . Street dust distribution patterns are almost similar to those found for roadside soils. The obtained results indicate, that urban and industrial street dust samples contain high levels of Pb, Cu, Zn, and As, as well as remarkable levels of Cd and Hg whose primary contributors appear to be vehicular local traffic and the nearby phosphoric fertilizer and petrochemical industry plants. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Urban surfaces receive deposits issued from more or less remote sources (vehicle emissions, industrial discharges, domestic heating, waste incineration and other anthropogenic activities) through atmo- spheric transport as well as from local human activities (Gibson and Farmer, 1986; Harrison et al., 1981; Thornton, 1991). The persistence of heavy metals in soils is a long process (Kelly et al., 1996). Street dusts and top roadside soils in urban area are indicators of heavy metal contamination from atmospheric deposition. Key heavy metals are thereby Pb from leaded gasoline, Cu, Zn and Cd from car components, tyre abrasion, lubricants, industrial and incinerator emissions (Markus and McBratney, 1996; Wilcke et al., 1998). The source of Ni and Cr in street dust is believed to be corrosion of cars (Ferguson and Kim, 1991; Akhter and Madany, 1993) and chrome plating of some motor vehicle parts (Al-Shayep and Seaward, 2001) respectively. Arsenic distribution in the urban environment is due to emission of fossil fuel combustion, industrial activities, widespread use of pigments, pesticides and other human activities reported in recent years (O'Neill, 1990; Tsai et al., 2003). Moreover, some gasoline was reported to contain 30–120 ng g -1 of As (Nakamoto, 2000). Coal burning, municipal solid waste incineration, electronic, paper, and pharmaceutical industries were identified as the major sources of anthropogenic emission of Hg (Biester et al., 2002; Tack et al., 2005). Liang et al. (1996) reported that several kinds of gasoline contain 0.2–3.3 ng g -1 of Hg. Street dust investigation is of particular importance here for two main reasons. First, street dust is freely being inhaled by those traversing the streets and those residing within the vicinity of the streets. The more the dusts on such streets become contaminated with heavy metals, the more such people are exposed to the health hazards associated with such metals. Second, when rains are received, the dust usually gets discharged in the adjoining marine environment, could seriously pollute the water and concentrate in the surface sediments of the coastal area. This might prove toxic to marine life, and at worst it may contaminate fish or shellfish, which could have adverse direct impacts on the health of individuals that consume seafood. In general, when heavy metal are present in high concentrations in the environment result in health hazards such as adversely affecting the nervous, blood forming, cardiovascular, renal and reproductive systems. Other includes reduced intelligence, attention deficit and behavioral abnormality, as well as its contribution to cardiovascular disease in adults. In recent years, there is a growing concern for the potential contribution of ingested dust to metal toxicity in humans (Chirenje et al., 2006; Inyang and Bae, 2006). Some trace metals (such as Cu and Zn) at small amounts are harmless, but some (mainly Pb, As, Hg and Cd) even at extremely low concentrations are toxic and are potential cofactors, initiators or promoters in many diseases and cancer (Dockery and Pope, 1996; Willers et al., 2005). Young children are more likely to ingest significant quantities of dust than adults because of the behavior of mouthing non-food objects and repetitive hand/finger sucking (Barga- gli, 1998). Secondly, children have a much higher absorption rate of heavy metals from digestion system and higher hemoglobin sensitivity to heavy metals than adults (Hammond, 1982). The city of Kavala, with a population of 70,000 inhabitants divides the studied area (150,000 in habitants during summer) into two parts Geoderma 151 (2009) 257–263 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: nikstam@inale.gr (N. Stamatis). 0016-7061/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2009.04.016 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Geoderma journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoderma