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Comparison of methods used to calculate typical threshold values for potentially toxic elements in soil

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Abstract

The environmental quality of land can be assessed by calculating relevant threshold values, which differentiate between concentrations of elements resulting from geogenic and diffuse anthropogenic sources and concentrations generated by point sources of elements. A simple process allowing the calculation of these typical threshold values (TTVs) was applied across a region of highly complex geology (Northern Ireland) to six elements of interest; arsenic, chromium, copper, lead, nickel and vanadium. Three methods for identifying domains (areas where a readily identifiable factor can be shown to control the concentration of an element) were used: k-means cluster analysis, boxplots and empirical cumulative distribution functions (ECDF). The ECDF method was most efficient at determining areas of both elevated and reduced concentrations and was used to identify domains in this investigation. Two statistical methods for calculating normal background concentrations (NBCs) and upper limits of geochemical baseline variation (ULBLs), currently used in conjunction with legislative regimes in the UK and Finland respectively, were applied within each domain. The NBC methodology was constructed to run within a specific legislative framework, and its use on this soil geochemical data set was influenced by the presence of skewed distributions and outliers. In contrast, the ULBL methodology was found to calculate more appropriate TTVs that were generally more conservative than the NBCs. TTVs indicate what a “typical” concentration of an element would be within a defined geographical area and should be considered alongside the risk that each of the elements pose in these areas to determine potential risk to receptors.

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Acknowledgments

Alex Donald of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland (GSNI) is thanked for arranging access to the Tellus data. Many thanks to GSNI for providing their superficial and bedrock geology maps (Crown Copyright), and their information on mineral occurrences (Crown Copyright). The Tellus project was funded by the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment and by the Rural Development Programme through the Northern Ireland Programme for building sustainable prosperity. This research is supported by the EU INTERREG IVA-funded Tellus Border project. The views and opinions expressed in this research report do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission or the SEUPB. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. The two anonymous reviewers are thanked for their valuable comments.

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  1. Environmental Engineering Research Centre, School of Planning, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT9 5AG, UK

    Rebekka McIlwaine, Siobhan F. Cox, Rory Doherty, Sherry Palmer & Ulrich Ofterdinger

  2. School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT9 5AG, UK

    Jennifer M. McKinley

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  1. Rebekka McIlwaine
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McIlwaine, R., Cox, S.F., Doherty, R. et al. Comparison of methods used to calculate typical threshold values for potentially toxic elements in soil. Environ Geochem Health 36, 953–971 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-014-9611-x

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