Degradation of urban soil quality due to air and road traffic: relevant info and research

Abstract

Aircraft operations at an airport result in the emission of various substances. Simultaneously, in an airport area, road traffic is very intense, also contributing to the emission of the same substances. In this work, potentially toxic elements, essentially trace metals, and others not categorised as such (alloys elements and ceramic particles that constitute particulate matter) are considered, which end up being deposited on soils. The main purpose of this study is to identify soil quality degradation potentially connected to aircraft operations related to Lisbon airport, Portugal. At the same time, an attempt was made to differentiate the contribution of soil quality degradation resulting from road traffic. Several geotechnical and chemical parameters were determined for all of the 102 collected samples. X-ray fluorescence analysis was performed to identify and quantify the main elements present in all samples. Some samples were also subjected to X-ray diffraction to determine the mineralogical composition. The data obtained allow the creation of distribution maps of the detected elements and, after multivariate statistical analysis, conclude which ones are related to very intense road traffic and which ones are related to aircraft traffic emissions, in an urban area, based on a holistic interpretation of all intervenient variables.