Public health and heavy metals in urban and periurban horticulture.

The health effects of heavy metals can be complex and severe. Exposure to heavy metals has been linked withdevelopmental retardation, various cancers, kidney damage, and even death in some instances of exposure tovery high concentrations. Soils in urban and suburban areas are transformed by human activities, they arecharacterized by a strong spatial heterogeneity resulting from the various inputs of exogenous materials and themixing of original soil material, and they often hold pollutants that may be a threat to human health. Theobjective of this work is to present a study of heavy metals occurrence in 33 urban and periurban soils dedicatedto horticulture in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Total heavy metal content in soils (cadmium, chromium, copper,nickel, lead and zinc) was evaluated using Sequential Plasma Emission Spectrometer (ICP-ES). Data wereanalyzed using multivariate analysis showing a primary separation in two groups: eight sites with high contentsof one or more of the analized heavy metals and the second group with lower levels of heavy metals. Maximumvalues of Cd, Pb, Zn and Cu in horticultural soils resulted problematic with reference to public health.