Soil contamination, pollution indices, and ecological risk in agricultural areas of important mining region of Türkiye

ABSTRACTHeavy metals accumulate mostly in soil in nature, and heavy metal pollution is becoming a serious concern. This study aimed to determine the pollution level and possible sources of heavy metals in the agricultural areas in the Emet district of Kütahya, where a significant boron mine is located worldwide. 64 soil samples were taken from Emet district of Kütahya, Türkiye in 2016, and Cr, Co, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn and Pb analysed. Heavy metal pollution was determined using the Enrichment Factor (Ef), Geoaccumulation Index (Igeo), Contamination Factor (Cf), and Ecological Risk Factor (Er), Pollution Load Index (PLI), and Potential Ecological Risk Index (RI). According to the pollution index Ef, the study area is moderately enriched in terms of Pb (4.18) and Zn (2.17), while in terms of Cf, the study area is moderately polluted in terms of Pb (2.13) and Zn (1.02). Moreover, the PLI (2.67) index shows that soils are under multiple heavy metal pollution. According to Pearson correlation analysis and principal component analysis, the source of Pb and Zn in the study area is anthropogenic. However, no heavy metal pollution caused by boron mine was found in the study area.KEYWORDS: Soil contaminationpollution indicesmultivariate analysisKütahya province AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the journal administrators for their guidance in registering the article.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Data availability statementData will be made available at reasonable request.Author contributionAll authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Fatih KIZILASLAN, Melis Özge PINAR, Serdar TOPRAK, Didem ÖZEN, Volkan ALVEROĞLU, Mahmut BAYRAM, Hasan ÇAKILLI, Abdullah ALTAY, Ramazan YAVUZ, İsmail DİNEK. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Özgür ATEŞ, Kadriye TAŞPINAR, Gülser YALÇIN, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.Additional informationFundingThis study was supported by the General Directorate of Agricultural Research And Policies [grant numbers: TAGEM/TSKAD/12/A13/P0701-08].