Soil pollution with heavy metals in industrial and agricultural areas : a case study of Olkusz district

Soil contamination of areas covered by industrial plants and farms is one of the major environmental problems whose weight is underestimated in Poland and Europe. Such regions are usually not as exposed to direct pollution as highly urbanized industrial areas. On the other hand, they are usually less strictly monitored than protected areas. The District of Olkusz, an example of such a region, is characterized by well-developed agriculture, regressing local industry and growing tourism industry. However, it borders with Silesia, a heavily industrized area. The study reports the condition of arable soils in Olkusz District in terms of their contamination with lead, cadmium, zinc and copper. The atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) method was used to determine the concentrations of the metallic elements. The parameters like pH, content of the clay fraction and content of organic matter have been also taken in consideration to assess the bioavailability of the metals. The analytical results showed that, despite the decreasing impact of the local industry, levels of concentration of all the studied metals are significantly higher than their average concentration in Polish soils. Moreover, all the calculated Pearson correlation coefficients between concentrations of the metals were above 0.9, which means they correlate each other strongly. The impact of the local pollutants (mainly Bukowno smelter) in connection with the proximity of the Silesia and the high vulnerability for contamination of the soils precludes agricultural use of the ground in at least half of the cases

Water quality of urban water bodies : a threat for amphibians?

Most studies on the effects of water quality on amphibians concern experimental conditions. The main aim of our study was to determine whether the quality of water bodies in urban environment may be a factor leading to local extinction of some amphibian species. We investigated the current amphibian richness in Kraków water bodies and the water quality of these water bodies. We compared our results with available historical data on amphibian richness in Kraków and we determined the number of amphibian species local extinction for each water body. Then, we compared water bodies with low amphibian extinction rates to water bodies with high amphibian extinction rates in respect to ten water quality chemical indicators. We found that the values of most chemical indicators were higher in water bodies with high amphibian extinction rates. The values of magnesium and chloride ion concentration, as well as conductivity appeared to differ the most between these two types of water bodies which is connected mainly with spring run-off into the water bodies. The results of this study demonstrate that water pollution may lead to local extinction of amphibian species

Selected physicochemical parameters of water from the springs of the Prądnik valley

The springs in the Ojców National Park are one of the most important elements of the landscape. Despite their protection, they are exposed to pollution, mainly due to the increased tourism and traffic in the Prądnik valley. Eleven physicochemical parameters for seven main springs have been studied. The results were compared with the Polish regulations and with the previous studies to check the rate of change of the spring water condition. The nutrient pollution turned out to be the most variable, both in time and space