Heavy metal contamination of selected Brno city localities

The aim of this work is to study the soil and plant contamination by heavy metals (lead, cadmium and mercury) in five selected places of Brno city. The sampling place Opuštěná represents the heavily polluted locality with high traffic density situated in the city centre. Sampling places Vídeňská and Podstránská belong to medium polluted localities, that are situated close to frequented roads. Relatively clean localities are represented by Musorgského and Šrámkova places, which are situated in peripheral city district with smaller traffic density. Soil and plants were sampled at two time periods (November 2008 and January 2009). Average amounts of mercury, cadmium and lead in collected soil samples are lower then limits of the Directive number 13/1994 of the Code of Ministry of the Environment. The content of heavy metals in soils corresponds to the sampling place. The highest value of metals content was found in the soil sampled at Opuštěná site. The content of lead and mercury in leaves of common dandelion was higher than the content in roots. In the case of cadmium the situation was opposite, the highest content was measured in underground part of the plant. It was found, that the content of heavy metals in leafy and underground part showed only small difference between sampling places. Nevertheless, the locality Opuštěná is found again as the highest contaminated place. Values of pH of collected soil samples were ranged in neutral area between 7 and 7,5