Evaluación de la vulnerabilidad a la contaminación por metales pesados en zonas urbanas de Cartago.

Urban pollution is one of the main problems in cities around the world. Among the
main pollutants are heavy metals (HMs), which represent one of the problems of
greatest interest due to their toxic effects and their inclusion in the trophic chains,
seriously affecting human health and the quality of the environment. Their natural
biogeochemical cycle has been seriously altered due to uncontrolled
anthropogenic inputs (industry, traffic, use of pesticides and fertilizers, etc.). HMs
are absorbed in particulate matter suspended in the air and in soils. The
assessment of heavy metal contamination is a costly procedure by traditional
methods of sampling and chemical analysis; therefore, the use of magnetic
properties of monitors, plant leaves and soil, represents an economical and
effective option to identify PMs present in the environment. This study aims to
identify areas of vulnerability to heavy metal contamination in the urban area of
Cartago, for which a systematic sampling of soil and plants during the dry season
would be carried out. The plants used would be Casuarina equisetifolia and
Cupressus lusitanica, species for which there are predictive models of heavy metal
concentration based on magnetic properties from a previous study. The samples
will have their mass magnetic susceptibility (χlf) and frequency-dependent
susceptibility (χfd%) properties determined. Subsequently, using ordinary Kriging
analysis (OK), distribution maps of the magnetic properties will be obtained, which
correlated to the population maps, will allow identifying the vulnerability of the
population of the urban area of Cartago to heavy metal contamination. Two
contamination indices will also be calculated: The Contamination Factor (CF) and
the Pollution Load Index (PLI).

Identificar zonas de vulnerabilidad por contaminación por metales pesados en la zona urbana de Cartago.

Magnetismo ambiental