Concentration of heavy metals in the agricultural soils of the Lublin Region and Poland

The paper characterises total concentrations of Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn in the surface layers (0-20 cm) of agricultural soils in Poland (48620 soils samples) and Lublin region (3829 soil samples). The results for Lublin region are expressed in terms of the degree of metal pollution as compared to contamination in the rest of the country. The average concentration of Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn (in mg kg-1 of soil) in the A horizon of agricultural soils in Poland and in Lublin region (values in parenthesis) are as follows: 0.21 (0.17); 6.5 (4.9); 6.2 (6.6); 13.6 (10.7); 32.4 (23.3). About 79% of the agricultural soils in Poland are characterised by a natural (0°) content of heavy metals while 17.6% contain elevated level (10) of these metals. In the Lublin region it is 91.9% and 6.7%, respectively. About 3% of the Polish soils (1.4% in the Lublin region) exhibit various degrees of contamination with heavy metals. This includes heavy (IV0) and very heavy pollution (V0) which is found in up to 0.4% of the agricultural land and up to 0.2% in the Lublin region.