@article{10272/20711,
year = {2022},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10272/20711},
abstract = {Mineral processing and metallurgy production centers may leave a far-reaching fingerprint
of soil contamination. This scenario is particularly relevant in the mining district of Linares (Southern
Spain), where former industrial sites are now dedicated to other land uses. Within this context,
we selected five sectors of concern in Linares region, which are currently used as agricultural and
residential areas. The study began with an edaphic characterization, including grain-size fractioning
and soil chemical analyses, which were complemented by mineralogical and sequential extraction
information. Anomalous soil concentrations of As, Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn were found, with higher
values than the admissible regional guideline limits. Moreover, chemical speciation indicated that
in general, Pb, Zn, and Cd were highly available and bound mainly to the carbonate fraction. In
addition, health risk assessment evidenced potential threats by Pb and As. Regarding remediation
approaches, we observed that, in soils affected by mining and ore dressing activities, the clay and
silt size fractions contained the highest pollution load, making them suitable for a size classification
treatment. By contrast, in areas affected by metallurgical activity, pollutants were prone to be evenly
distributed among all grain sizes, thereby complicating the implementation of such remediation
strategies},
organization = {This work was partially funded by the research projects NANOCAREM, MCI-20-PID2019-
106939GB-I00 (AEI/Spain, FEDER/EU).
Carlos Boente obtained a postdoctoral contract within the PAIDI 2020 program
(Ref 707 DOC 01097), cofinanced by the Junta de Andalucía (Andalusian Government). This work
was developed under the project UIDB/04683/2020 and UIDP/04683/2020—ICT, Fundação para a
Ciência e Tecnologia. The authors thank Noemi Esquinas for assistance provided with the sequential
extraction procedures},
publisher = {MDPI},
keywords = {Soil pollution},
keywords = {Heavy metals},
keywords = {Risk assessment},
keywords = {Remediation},
title = {Impact of Old Pb Mining and Metallurgical Production in Soils from the Linares Mining District (Spain)},
doi = {10.3390/environments9020024},
author = {Boente López, Carlos and Sierra, Carlos and Martínez López, Julián and Rodríguez Valdés, E. and Afif, Elías and Rey Arrans, Javier and Horta Ribeiro Antunes, Isabel Margarida and Rodríguez Gallego, José Luis},
}