Chemometric Evaluation of the Heavy Metals in Urban Soil of Fallujah City, Iraq

Abstract

To evaluate the concentrations of heavy metals and identification of their sources, 20 composite soil samples were collected randomly in Fallujah city, Iraq. To assess the pollution level, we used the soil metal index (SMI) and enrichment factor. We investigated the sources of heavy metal using the chemometric techniques such as correlation analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA). The concentrations of Pb and Co have a normal distribution in soil of the study area. Zn and Cd have an approximately normal distribution, and Ni, Cu, and Cr have a non-normal distribution. Our results revealed that the urban soils in Fallujah city were unpolluted by heavy metals and showed a significant to extremely high enrichments of heavy metals controlled by anthropogenic activities. The moderate to strong positive correlations among Cd, Co, Cu, Cr, Ni, Pb, and Zn suggest that these metals have common sources. The chemometric techniques identify that the source of Cu, Co and Pb is controlled by lithogenic origin and that the source of Cr, Ni and Cd is controlled by mixed sources (lithogenic and anthropogenic).