Study of the spatial variability of copper and cadmium concentration along the Meuse River margin

Abstract

The knowledge of the concentration levels of heavy metals in the environment and their dissemination in soil and water are of paramount importance in environmental studies, as one of the indicators of "measuring" the balance of biodiversity and the stability of ecosystems. The objective of this study was to study the spatial distribution of two heavy metals (Copper and Cadmium) along the banks of the Meuse River, in order to measure the levels of contamination by these metals. Cd and Cu concentration data were sampled at 155 georeferenced points. These data were obtained in the program R in the package "gstat" whose database is called "Meuse". The data analysis methodology consisted in adjusting semivariograms for spatial dependence analysis, and the spherical and Gaussian models were adjusted for the copper and cadmium concentration, respectively. The degree of spatial dependence was classified as strong for the copper concentration and moderate for the cadmium concentration. The estimation of the concentration of these heavy metals in non-sampled points was done using the kriging method, producing spatial distribution maps of the copper and cadmium concentrations that presented a similar pattern. It was verified that of the two heavy metals, Copper has very high concentrations that reach 130 mg / kg of soil.