DISTRIBUTION AND MINOR ELEMENTS CONTAMINATION IN URBAN AND PERI-UBAN SOILS AREA OF SLANIC MOLDOVA, ROMANIA

The main purpose of this study is to assess the minor elements contamination (Cr, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd and Pb) from urban and peri-urban soils of Slanic Moldova city by analyzing their possible pollution sources through Nemerow pollution index and cluster analysis. Evaluation results showed that the concentrations of minor elements in soil were found for the most elements in standard limits, exception in this case for As and Pb which showed moderate contamination. It is recommended that supplementary measures should be considered for controlling the current contamination in the studied area. As a preliminary observation, the concentrations from the studied soils come mostly from parental material (lithogenic context), but in some cases with an additional input from agricultural practices. The Cluster Analysis indicates that four main groups are correlated and are divided into anthropogenic and geogenic groups.