Assessment of metal (Fe, Pb and Cd) pollution of surface runoff of the high traffic intensity regions in city of Malayer, Iran

Nowadays, increases in the extent of impervious surfaces in urban areas causes contributed to flooding and runoff contamination. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess Fe, Pb and Cd concentrations in surface runoff samples collected from regions with high traffic intensity in city of Malayer, west of Iran.

In the current study, a total of 15 surface runoff samples were collected from five selected stations. The samples were filtered (0.45 μm), stored in polyethylene bottles and were acidified at a pH lower than 2 by adding concentrated HNO3 in order to avoid metal adsorption onto the inner bottle walls. Element (Fe, Pb and Cd) concentrations were determined using ICP-OES (710-ES, Varian). All statistical analyses were done using SPSS version 20.0

The results showed that the mean concentrations of Fe, Pb and Cd in runoff samples were 0.220, 0.320 and 0.150 µg/l, respectively. Comparing the mean concentrations of analyzed elements with maximum permissible concentration (MPC) established by WHO and Iran DOE indicated that the mean concentrations of Pb and Cd were found to be higher than WHO permissible limits. On the other hand, the mean concentration of Cd was higher than Iran DOE permissible limits.

The results indicated that surface runoff from regions with high traffic intensity in city of Malayer were polluted with Pb and Cd, which could be threaten the surface water resources and health of citizens. Therefore, periodic monitoring and consequently treatment of runoff from rainfall before entering to surface water resources is recommended.