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Contamination, risk, and source apportionment of potentially toxic microelements in river sediments and soil after extreme flooding in the Kolubara River catchment in Western Serbia

  • Soils, Sec 4 • Ecotoxicology • Research Article
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Abstract

Purpose

Climate change is contributing to an increase in extreme weather events. This results in a higher river flooding risk, causing a series of environmental disturbances, including potential contamination of agricultural soil. In Serbia, the catastrophic floods of 2014 affected six river basins, including the Kolubara River Basin, as one of the larger sub-catchments of the large regional Sava River Basin, which is characterized by large areas under agricultural cultures, various geological substrates, and different types of industrial pollution. The main aim of this study was to establish the sources of potentially toxic elements in soil and flood sediments and the effect of the flood on their concentrations.

Materials and methods

Field sampling was performed immediately after water had receded from the flooded area in May 2014. In total, 36 soil samples and 28 flood sediment samples were collected. After acid digestion (HNO3), concentrations of the most frequent potentially toxic elements (PTE) in agricultural production (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn) and Co which are closely related to the geological characteristics of river catchments, were analyzed. The origin, source, and interrelations of microelements, as well as background values of the PTE of the river catchment, the pollution index (Pi), enrichment factor (Ef), and geological index (Igeo), were determined, using statistical methods such as Pearson correlations, principal component analysis (PCA), and multiple linear regression (MLRA).

Results and discussion

The content of the hot acid-extractable forms of the elements, PCA, and MLRA revealed a heavy geological influence on microelement content, especially on Ni, Cr, and Co, while an anthropogenic influence was observed for Cu, Zn, and Cd content. This mixed impact was primarily related to mines and their impact on As and Pb content. The pseudo-total concentrations of all the analyzed elements did not prove to be a danger in the catchment area, except for Cu in some samples, indicating point-source pollution, and Ni, whose pseudo-total content could be a limiting factor in agricultural production. For the Ef, the Ni content in 59% soil and 68% flood sediment samples is classified into influence classes.

Conclusions

The similar pseudo-total contents of the elements studied in soil samples and flood sediment and their origin indicate that the long-term soil formation process is subject to periodic flooding in the Kolubara River Basin without any significant changes taking place. This implies that floods are not an endangering factor in terms of the contamination of soil by potentially toxic elements in the explored area.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, grant. no. 173018, III 43007, TR 37006.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, Institute for Biological Research ‘Siniša Stanković’, University of Belgrade, Bulevar despota Stefana 142, Belgrade, 11060, Serbia

    Dragan Čakmak, Veljko Perović, Miroslava Mitrović & Pavle Pavlović

  2. Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, Neman**a 6, Belgrade, 11080, Serbia

    Svetlana Antić-Mladenović & Mirjana Kresović

  3. Soil Science Institute, Teodora Drajzera 7, Belgrade, 11000, Serbia

    Elmira Saljnikov

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  1. Dragan Čakmak
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  2. Veljko Perović
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  4. Mirjana Kresović
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  6. Miroslava Mitrović
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Correspondence to Dragan Čakmak.

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Čakmak, D., Perović, V., Antić-Mladenović, S. et al. Contamination, risk, and source apportionment of potentially toxic microelements in river sediments and soil after extreme flooding in the Kolubara River catchment in Western Serbia. J Soils Sediments 18, 1981–1993 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-017-1904-0

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