Concentration of trace elements in forest soil affected by former timber depot

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Concentration of trace elements in forest soil affected by former timber depot Arkadiusz Warczyk & Tomasz Wanic & Jacek Antonkiewicz & Marcin Pietrzykowski

Received: 6 February 2020 / Accepted: 6 July 2020 / Published online: 14 September 2020 # The Author(s) 2020

Abstract Certain parts of global forests show elevated concentrations of trace elements as a result of industry processes, places such as wood depots and plant protection products, which together degrade the forest environment. This paper examines a timber depot that used wood preservatives in World War II located in the Warcino Forest Inspectorate (Poland). It presents monitory findings on the degree to which the upper soil layer in the depot area has been contaminated by wood preservatives. Within two forest divisions, a network of soil extraction points was established, distinguished into three separate categories that demarcate the degrees of vegetation coverage and growth of the common pine. These were Area A (area with a pine stand that is several dozen years-old), Area B (areas with a pine stand that is approximately a dozen years-old) and Area C (areas without a pine stand). The Cu concentration in the surface categories was respectively 141.03/187.54/ 834.43 mg·kg−1. Above 600% in Cu concentration was noted in category C in comparison to category A. It was found that the content of most elements (B, Cd, Co, Cr, Fe, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Zn) did not exceed the A. Warczyk (*) : T. Wanic : M. Pietrzykowski Department of Ecology and Silviculture, Faculty of Forestry, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Al. 29 Listopada 46,, 31-425 Krakow, Poland e-mail: [email protected] J. Antonkiewicz Department of Agricultural and Environmental Chemistry, Faculty of Agriculture and Economics, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Al. Mickiewicza 21,, 31-120 Krakow, Poland

permissible values according to the Regulation of the Minister of the Environment on soil quality standards; however, in the case of Cu, the limit values established for forest and agricultural soils were exceeded, with the highest Cu contents found in the ‘C’ category. The results obtained confirm that the wood protection chemicals, such as copper sulphate, affected the longterm pollution of forest soils. Keywords Copper . Soil pollution . Timber depot . Monitoring

Introduction In recent years, environmental awareness has risen alongside a growing demand for wood products, inspiring a global aim to meet the demand for wood while minimising its environmental damage. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2001) forecasts that demand for wood will increase by 45% to 2.3 billion cubic meters in 2020. Due to the heightened environmental awareness and the subsequent use of renewable raw materials to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and carbon sequestration from the atmosphere, timber has been of great interest to society for many years (Köhl et al. 2015; Ramage et al. 2017). While timber products are indeed made from renewable and sustainable environmental resources (Klein et al.