ORIGINAL PAPER Evaluation of heavy metal and total petroleum hydrocarbon contamination of roadside surface soil A. B. Khan • S. Kathi Received: 30 November 2013 / Revised: 26 March 2014 / Accepted: 11 May 2014 / Published online: 26 June 2014 Ó Islamic Azad University (IAU) 2014 Abstract The present study was conducted along three major highways namely State Highway (SH49), National Highway (NH66 and 45A) connecting Puducherry (India) for assessing heavy metals and total petroleum hydrocar- bon contamination from surface soils in close proximity at a depth of 0–15 cm into automobile repair workshops and agricultural fields located beside the highways. Contami- nation levels of copper, lead, zinc, manganese, cadmium and chromium were assessed in the surface sediments soil on the basis of geoaccumulation index, contamination factors and spatial variability. The results revealed that sampling sites in the proximity to automobile workshops were moderately to considerably pollution impacted as compared to soil from agricultural fields along highways suggesting a direct influence of anthropogenic activities on levels of contamination. The concentration of heavy metals in the surface soil of automobile workshops close to NH66 ranged between 143.07 and 319.28 mg kg -1 copper; 68.72–396.41 mg kg -1 lead; 162.42–284.91 mg kg -1 zinc; 212.72–401.33 mg kg -1 manganese; 0.12–15.41 mg kg -1 chromium; and 0.73–1.06 mg kg -1 cadmium in dry soil. However, in agricultural fields, the concentrations varied between 33.68 and 66.62 mg kg -1 copper; 27.22–73.66 mg kg -1 lead; 26.24–75.59 mg kg -1 zinc; 137.88–242.07 mg kg -1 manganese; 0–0.21 mg kg -1 chromium; and 1.04–1.58 mg kg -1 cadmium. Total petroleum hydrocarbon concentration near automobile workshops ranged between 90.72 and 121.79 mg kg -1 in contrast to 44.94–83.4 mg kg -1 in agricultural fields. Total petroleum hydrocarbon concentration indicated strong positive correlation with zinc (r = 0.811), copper (r = 0.761); lead (r = 0.642), Mn (r = 0.571), chromium (r = 0.530) and strong negative correlation with cadmium (r =-0.765) at 0.05 significance level. Pearson correla- tion indicated a strong association of total petroleum hydrocarbon with copper, lead and zinc suggesting that the metal contaminants from roadside surface soil had ema- nated from a common source. Keywords Agricultural fields  Automobile workshops  Contamination factor  Geoaccumulation index  Total petroleum hydrocarbon  Transportation Introduction As transportation systems become more integrated into the human civilization, their impacts on air, water and soil are inevitable. Some countries in Europe restrict the usage of transportational modes considering their environmental effects (Tuzkaya 2009). In the rural areas, roads usually pass through heavily fertilized crop fields (Ahmad and Erum 2010). Long-term accumulation of heavy metals from road traffic effects soil biota and food. Pb released from emissions gets translocated from the roots to the shoot and leaves in plants (Christiana and Samuel 2013). Urban soils are marked with elevated levels of heavy metals due to extensive anthropogenic activities related to vehicular emissions and traffic, industrial and urban waste, mining, smelting and manufacturing by metal industries, wear and tear of tires, building materials and road activities, fertil- izers and agricultural run-off (Lu et al. 2010; Mahanta and Bhattacharyya 2011; Malik et al. 2010; Montoneri et al. 2014). Heavy metal accumulation in soil, their origin and A. B. Khan (&)  S. Kathi Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Pondicherry University, R. V. Nagar, Kalapet 605 014, Puducherry, India e-mail: anisabasheer@gmail.com 123 Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. (2014) 11:2259–2270 DOI 10.1007/s13762-014-0626-8