Abstract
Urbanization is one of the major causes of soil pollution of many market garden soils in various municipalities. The aim of this project was to monitor the heavy metal contents in market garden soils and vegetables in Hong Kong as affected by human activities. Cadmium, Zn, Cu and Pb concentrations were determined on soil and two vegetable samples, Brassica chinensis and B. parachinensis, collected from eleven different locations. The EDTA-extractable heavy metal concentrations in soil were analysed to assess their availability for plant uptake. Mean total Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn concentrations for all soil samples were (mg kg−1): 1.01 (range 0.25 to 2.17), 18 (range 5 to 67), 60 (range 24 to 113) and 105 (range 20 to 232), respectively, and were all below the investigation levels for contaminated soil. The heavy metal concentrations of soils in more urbanized sites were consistently higher than some remote sites. Significant positive correlations were found between EDTA-extractable and total metal contents in s...
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