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| Titel |
Transfer of Cd, Cu and Zn from soil into food crops in the Mashavera Valley, Georgia |
| VerfasserIn |
Levan Navrozashvili, Thomas Hanauer, Besik Kalandadze, Tengiz Urushadze, Diedrich Steffens, Peter Felix-Henningsen |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2011
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 13 (2011) |
| Datensatznummer |
250045835
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Soil pollution with trace elements resulting from mining activities is a very actual problem in many industrial regions.
The study focuses on the Mashavera Velley, Georgia. It is situated 80 km south of Tbilisi, the capital. It is characterised by a semiarid climate and very fertile, alkaline Chernozems and Kastanozems. The intensive agricultural land use is limited by the aridity of the climate. Due to this, vegetable gardens, grape
fields and orchards as well as arable land are intensively irrigated with water supplied by a canal system fed by water from the Mashavera River. As a result of non-ferous metal mining in the mountainous area of the middle reaches of the Mashavera, the river is loaded with fines containing sulphidic metals (Cu, Zn, Cd), which derive from erosion of mining waste deposits and waste water of a flotation plant.
After decades of irrigation the soils of the Mashavera valley area are highly contaminated with Cu, Zn and Cd to such an extent that German and
international threshold values for food production are greatly exceeded. Therefore a high risk of the transfer of these metals into the food chain can be assumed.
In October 2009 and March 2010 135 top soils and related crops were sampled. Elevated concentrations of Cu, Zn and Cd can be measured in crops sampled on soils irrigated with Mashavera water compared to soils irrigate with non-contaminated water (e.g. ground water). Partly Cd concentrations exceed the EU threshold for food crops. Especially in leafy vegetables like Spinacia olerachea up to the 2.5 fold. In addition the measured values of Cu and Zn partly exceed the concentrations toxic for crops grown on. |
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