Celery roots and garden soils from 26 households in a historically polluted Romanian area showed wide cadmium and lead variation in 2021–2022. Soil results use dry weight, while edible celeriac results use fresh weight; these paired measurements preserve a legacy-contamination pathway without assigning sole liability to any facility.
Key numbers
| Matrix | Metal | Min | Max | Median | Geometric mean | Mean | SD | CV% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| soil | Cd | 0.1 | 14.8 | 4.45 | 1.82 | 4.31 | 3.95 | 91.6 |
| soil | Pb | 28 | 326 | 118.5 | 100.9 | 131.2 | 92.5 | 70.5 |
| soil | Zn | 117 | 1076 | 317 | 323.5 | 383 | 238.2 | 62.2 |
| soil | Cu | 25 | 163 | 58.5 | 58.8 | 65.3 | 31.4 | 48.1 |
| root-tuber-vegetables | Cd | 0.058 | 1.254 | 0.311 | 0.362 | 0.463 | 0.321 | 69.3 |
| root-tuber-vegetables | Pb | 0.022 | 0.62 | 0.105 | 0.117 | 0.163 | 0.138 | 84.7 |
| root-tuber-vegetables | Zn | 3.1 | 11.7 | 6.95 | 6.72 | 7.03 | 2.06 | 29.3 |
| root-tuber-vegetables | Cu | 0.6 | 2.51 | 1.41 | 1.27 | 1.35 | 0.45 | 33.3 |
All concentration statistics aremg/kg: soilDW, celeryrootFW. Highest labelled celeryCd 1.254 mg/kgFW at MicăsasaMS 16; highestPb 0.620 at AxenteSeverAS 13. Household-labelled points and source soil/root regression coefficients are retained in structured evidence.
Methods (brief)
2021–2022 paired household soil 0–20 cm and celeryroot samples. Soil air-dried and aqua-regia microwave digested; roots tap-water washed twice, chopped, frozen and nitric-acid microwave digested. Flame/graphite-furnace AAS. n 26; source explicitly labels soilDW and celeryFW. Collection includes AxenteSever, Agârbiciu, Bazna, CopșaMică, Micăsasa,Șoala, Târnava.
Implications
Supports historical industrial-burden and present edible-root occurrence evidence. Celery here is celeriac, not stalk celery; product routing is root/tuber vegetables. Geographic sampling is targeted to a polluted area and is not a national market sample.
Evidence Fitness: EF-2 for paired soil/food summary statistics and labelled household measurements. Preserve all summary types and unequal matrix bases; no cross-market pooling assumption.
Wiki pages this source may touch
- Root and Tuber Vegetables
- Celery
- Soil-to-plant transfer of heavy metals
- Source attribution and environmental burden apportionment
- Cadmium
- Lead
- Zinc
- Copper
Verification notes
Novel root-vegetables matrix denotes celeriac. Table 1 Pbmean 131.2 governs over prose incorrectly calling 383.0 the Pbmean (that is Zn). Figure 1 Cdmaximum 14.80 governs over prose 14.08. Figure 3 Znr 0.656 governs over prose 0.565. Figure 2 governs SO 3/SO 5 Cd labels, which are reversed in one sentence. Named historical industrial attribution is paper context, not an adjudication of exclusive responsibility. DOI is absent from the PDF text; Crossref independently matches the same title and byline (https://api.crossref.org/works/10.52846/aamc.v52i1.1370). Use the printed 2022 issue year; Crossref online publication is 2023-01-04.
The preserved Library PDF is identified by RPHMI_14; SHA-256 2b62aac879967ae5faf9fc3a905ab8c1d4fbc57a52fc8e688466e1cd1c3baa55. The byline, year and publication were verified in the PDF. DOI provenance and any publication-date differences are described above. Original access location: https://anale.agro-craiova.ro/index.php/aamc/article/download/1370/1293. Source-specific numeric observations, context dispositions, row-fit decisions and remaining gaps are preserved in the structured evidence record. No source value was converted across product, soil, water or experimental matrices during ingest.
Update history
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