Using stinging nettle (Urtica dioicaL.) to assess the influence of long termemission upon pollution with metals of the Tatra National Park area(Poland)

Özet

Stinging nettle samples, soil samples and dust fall samples were collected from three stands (the ChochołowskaValley, the Strążyska Valley and Morskie Oko), located in the area of the Tatra National Park (South Poland) andsubjected to determination of the contents of 8 metals (iron, manganese, zinc, copper, lead, cadmium, nickel andchrome) using the atomic absorption spectrometry method. The aim of this work was to determine metalcontaminations in soil, dust fall and stinging nettle growing in the above mentioned area and to determine theinfluence of the long term emission upon these contaminations. Accumulation of the tested metals in nettle wasusually different and depending on the morphological part of a plant and the testing place it was for the par-ticular elements as follows (mg kg-1): Fe - 27–305, Mn - 17–46, Zn - 12–49, Cu - 2,8–10,6, Pb - 0,07-0,91, Cd -0,15-0,86, Ni - 0,31-0,91 and Cr - 0,00-0,49. We concluded that despite frequently small resources of bioa-vailable compounds of these metals in the ground, the soil is an important source of copper, zinc and manganesein stinging nettle. Additionally, long term emission is a significant source of elements introduced into the naturalenvironment of the Tatra National Park. The highest content of soluble compounds of all the tested metals in thedustflowing from the south of the country and of most metals from the west in the Chochołowska Valley, thelatter remaining under the influence of long term emission, indicate that the area of the Tatra National Park ispolluted mainly by the bioavailable metal compounds present in the long term industrial emission coming fromthe territory of Slovakia and the Czech Republic.