Use of national-scale data to examine human-mediated additions of heavy metals to wetland soils of the US

Soil concentrations of 12 heavy metals that have been linked to various anthropogenic activities were measured in samples collected from the uppermost horizon in approximately 1000 wetlands across the conterminous US as part of the 2011 National Wetland Condition Assessment (NWCA). The heavy metals were silver (Ag), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), antimony (Sb), tin (Sn), vanadium (V), tungsten (W), and zinc (Zn). Using thresholds to distinguish natural background concentrations from human-mediated additions, we evaluated wetland soil heavy metal concentrations in the conterminous US and four regions using a Heavy Metal Index (HMI) that reflects human-mediated heavy metal loads based on the number of elements above expected background concentration. We also examined the individual elements to detect concentrations of heavy metals above expected background that frequently occur in wetland soils. Our data show that wetland soils of the conterminous US typically have low heavy metal loads, and that most of the measured elements occur nationally in concentrations below thresholds that relate to anthropogenic activities. However, we found that soil lead is more common in wetland soils than other measured elements, occurring nationally in 11.3% of the wetland area in concentrations above expected natural background (> 35 ppm). Our data show positive relationships between soil lead concentration and four individual landscape metrics: road density, percent impervious surface, housing unit density, and population density in a 1-km radius buffer area surrounding a site. These relationships, while evident on a national level, are strongest in the eastern US, where the highest road densities and greatest population densities occur. Because lead can be strongly bound to wetland soils in particular, maintenance of the good condition of our nation’s wetlands is likely to minimize risk of lead mobilization. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10661-019-7315-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.