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International Conference on

Recent Trends in Environmental Sustainability

ESCON22/SAgri/10
Assessment of heavy metals accumulation in traffic affected urban landscape plants of
Vehari

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Fakhar Islam , Amjad Farooq* , Muhammad Farhan Saeed , Muhammad Shafique Khalid ,
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Iftikhar Ahmad and Ghulam Abbas
1 Department of Environmental Sciences COMSATS University Islamabad-Vehari Campus
61100 Pakistan
Correspondence: amjadfarooq@cuivehari.edu.pk
Abstract
Air pollution is the presence of one or more pollutants in high quantity for long periods of time
which is hazardous to people, plants, animals, businesses, individual properties, and natural
quality. The fumes of gases, car wheels and vehicle wear arise numerous contaminants in the
populated areas. The most well-known pollutants are heavy metals because they may persist in
nature for longer period of time without being degraded. The amount of heavy metals in the
environment is steadily increasing day by day. Metal contamination has harmful effects on
biological system. It does not go through biodegradation. The most dangerous toxic metals are
Pb, Cr, As, Zn, Cd, Cu etc. Plants and heavy metals have a complicated connection. Heavy
metals, which are required by plants for their physiological functions, are important nutrients
in trace amounts for healthy growth. The researcher selected the following ten plant species
from different areas of district Vehari for sake of measuring heavy metal accumulation in these
plants. i.e. Vachellia Nilotica, Conocarpus Erectus, Azadirachta Indica, Morus Alba,
Eucalyptus Globolus, Melia Azedarach, Pongamia Pinnata, Dalbergia sissoo, Ficus Virens and
Moringa Oleifra. Sampling was done in two major areas of Vehari (urban and rural) during
time period of vegetation season (September & October 2021). After collection, the leaves
samples were processed physical and mechanically to measure the presence of heavy metal
accumulation. The heavy metals concentration from foliar dust and leaves was determined with
the help of Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. (a) While measuring heavy metals
concentration in foliar dust of landscape plants in field area in foliar dust, it was found that
concentration of iron (Fe) is very highest and Mn on second number. (b)While measuring the
concentration of heavy metals in foliar dust of roadside areas, same result was received as
above; Iron accumulation is highest, Mn is on second number. (c) While measuring
concentration of heavy metals in leaves of field area plants, concentration of iron (Fe) is very
high, the presence of manganese is after iron.(d) While measuring concentration of heavy
metals in leaves of roadside area plants, same results were found. The heavy metals
concentrations (Fe, Mn and Ni) were observed higher in urban roadside side plants as compared
to field plants indicating higher level of air pollution in urban traffic areas. The levels of Cd
and Pb were observed to be lower than those of previous published works and regulatory
standards. Some plant species present in field area showed more concentrations of Fe and Mn
in their leaves indicating some hidden sources of those metals around the sampled area. Further
investigations should be carried out to determine the reasons of high concentrations of these
metals in selective plant species present in low traffic areas. A strange phenomenon was
observed while experiments that cadmium was not found in leave while it was present in foliar
dust of leaves.
Keywords: heavy metals; landscape; foliar dust.

Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Vehari Campus

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