Lead Content of Plant Leaves in Cebu City, Philippines

This study was conducted to determine the lead concentration in plant leaf of ipil-ipil (Leucaena leucocephala), gatas-gatas (Euphorbia hirta), bila-bila (Leucine indica) and basikad (Cyperus icyllingia) collected from N. Bacalso Street, University of San Carlos (USC) Retreat House and from Buhisan Dam, using atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) method. Appreciable amounts of lead concentration were found in plant species collected from USC Retreat House and in N. Bacalso Street, during the dry (averaged Pb ranging from 29-88 ppm) and wet (averaged Pb ranging from 3-38 ppm) seasons. Averaged lead concentration at dry season was found higher in N. Bacalso Street (55-88 ppm Pb); a commercial site which is exposed to greater pollution from transportation exhaust, than in USC Talamban Retreat House (29-43 ppm Pb), located uphill at -1km away from less busy road but situated also a few kilometers from industrial area. Buhisan Dam is a remote rural background site, had lead concentration below the detection limit of 0.078 ppm, for both seasons. Lead levels were higher in plants during the dry season than the similar plants of the wet season. The plant leaf, ipil-ipil from N. Bacalso Street during the dry season had the highest averaged lead concentration of 88 ppm. Moreover, traffic density, distance from traffic roads, industrial activity, climate, topography (uphill or downhill) and nature of plant leaf species were influencing factors in lead levels in plant leaf samples