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Assessment of metals concentrations in soils of Abu Dhabi emirate using pollution indices and multivariate statistics
Toxics
  • Yousef Nazzal, Zayed University
  • Alina Bărbulescu, Universitatea Transilvania din Brasov
  • Fares Howari, Zayed University
  • Ahmed A. Al-Taani, Zayed University
  • Jibran Iqbal, Zayed University
  • Cijo M. Xavier, Zayed University
  • Manish Sharma, Zayed University
  • Cristian Ștefan Dumitriu, S.C. Utilnavorep S.A.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2021
Abstract

The aim of this study was twofold. Firstly, we performed a land capability class determination of the agricultural soils from the Abu Dhabi Emirate, the United Arab Emirates, based on the concentrations of 17 chemical elements determined in the soil samples collected from 84 locations. Secondly, we assess the soil pollution with different metals, using several pollution indices. The results of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) shows that four principal components (PCs) are responsible for describing the total metals concentrations’ variance, the highest contribution on PC1 being that of Mn, and Cr, on PC2 that of Fe, on PC3 that of Cu, and on PC4 that of Al. After determining the optimal number of clusters, we classified the sites into three clusters, while the studied metals were grouped function on their concentrations. Then, we used five indices to assess the pollution level of the soil at the study sites and in the clusters. The geo—accumulation index (I ) indicates uncontamination/moderately contamination with Cu in cluster 1, uncontaminated/moderately contaminate soils with Cd, Cu, and Ni in cluster 2, and uncontaminated/moderately contaminated soil with Cu and moderately contaminated with Pb, Zn, and Ni in cluster 3. By comparison, the enrichment factors overestimate the pollution of the studied sites. The pollution load index (PLI) indicates a baseline level of pollution at 14 sites and the deterioration of the soil quality at four sites. The Nemerow pollution index provides similar results as PLI. geo

Disciplines
Keywords
  • Multivariate analysis,
  • PCA,
  • Pollution indices,
  • Soil pollution
Scopus ID
85105869661
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Indexed in Scopus
Yes
Open Access
Yes
Open Access Type
Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series
Citation Information
Yousef Nazzal, Alina Bărbulescu, Fares Howari, Ahmed A. Al-Taani, et al.. "Assessment of metals concentrations in soils of Abu Dhabi emirate using pollution indices and multivariate statistics" Toxics Vol. 9 Iss. 5 (2021)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jibran-iqbal/41/