Bioaccessibility of metals in city park soils - city of Edmonton

Abstract

Urban parks are widely used by Canadians for various leisure and sporting activities with children being the most exposed to any contaminants that may occur in the soils at playgrounds. Thus, a good understanding of soil ingestion and bioaccessibility has implications for the environmental management of urban parks. To this effect, this thesis focuses on heavy metals bioaccessibility in urban landscapes using the City of Edmonton as a case study. Total metal concentrations in soil samples collected from 12 city parks were all below the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment soil quality guidelines for residential/parkland use except for copper in two samples and zinc in one sample. Based on the total metals concentrations and the bioaccessibility data obtained the potential risks associated with the ingestion of heavy metal contaminants in soils at the playgrounds, especially the most toxic ones such as arsenic, cadmium, and lead were deemed low.