Estimating the Possibility of Lead Contamination in Soil Surface due to Lead Deposition in Atmosphere

An increase in heavy metal soil contamination, especially lead, in the industrial area or near industrial areas has become a serious environmental problem. An industrial zone including paints, electrical plants, metal works, machining, and smelting factories, in the suburban of Ho Chi Minh City, was chosen as the study area. Soil samples were collected from the industrial area and in the residential area next to the industrial area for three experiments, namely, lead content in the surface soils, lead leachate into the water, and movement of lead in soil. Then, the results were compared to the values in the Soil Contamination Countermeasures Law of the Japan Ministry of Environment to assess the possibility of soil contamination which may cause health risks to a human living in that area. The results of the analysis show that the soil has been contaminated by lead. In particular, the lead concentrations of the surface soil samples are 23-35 mg kg(-1), while the lead elution of soil samples is quite high, about 0.6 mg L-1. With these results, the soil can harm people by direct ingestion. More importantly, this work proves that lead species have been going down gradually. To assess the possibility of lead approaching groundwater, more further studies need to be achieved.