Copper concentration in the soils of the Danube floodplain between the rivers Timok and Vit northwestern Bulgaria

• Published in: European Journal of Geography
• Main Authors: Velimira STOYANOVA, Tsvetan KOTSEV, Georgi ZHELEZOV, Michaela SIMA, Erika-Andrea LEVEI
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: European Association of Geographers 2019-01-01
• Subjects: Lower Danube, Danube’s lowlands, heavy metals, wetland pollution
• Online Access: https://eurogeojournal.eu/index.php/egj/article/view/182
• ISSN: 1792-1341; 2410-7433

This paper presents an actual and overall picture of soil contamination with copper in the Bulgarian part of the Danube floodplain between the rivers Timok and Vit. Three sampling campaigns in October 2012, April 2013, and October 2017 are carried out in the frame of twostudies. The total content of copper is determined by atomic spectrometry in the soil fraction < .100 mm in the first study, and by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry in the soil fraction < 0.063 mm in the second survey. The copper concentration in the collected topsoil and subsoil samples ranges between 9.5 – 742.7 mg/kg with a median of 34.4 mg/kg. About 94 % of the samples exceed the background reference value, 10 % are above the maximum admissible concentration, and 3 % violate the intervention threshold. The copper content peaks in the Timok Valley and decrease downstream the Danube to nearly steady levels east of the Vidin Lowland.