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Characterization of metals in air and soil near a steel making plant in the North part of Italy

Elena C. Rada (Department of Civil Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Trento, Italy)
Marco Ragazzi (Department of Civil Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Trento, Italy)
Marco Tubino (Department of Civil Environmental and Mechanical Engineering, University of Trento, Trento, Italy)
Andrea Gambaro (Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, University of Venice, Venice, Italy AND Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes (CNR-IDPA), Venice, Italy)
Clara Turetta (Institute for the Dynamics of Environmental Processes (CNR-IDPA), Venice, Italy)
Elena Argiriadis (Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, University of Venice, Venice, Italy)
Marco Vecchiato (Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, University of Venice, Venice, Italy)
Barbara Rossi (Department of Physics, University University of Trento, Trento, Italy)
Maurizio Tava (Agenzia Provinciale per la Protezione dell’Ambiente – APPA, Trento, Italy)

Management of Environmental Quality

ISSN: 1477-7835

Article publication date: 13 June 2016

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to define suitable tracers that are particularly significant in assessing the impact on the surrounding environment caused by a steel making plant.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors focussed on the detection and quantification of inorganic pollutants such as heavy metals in the soil and in the air in the surrounding area of the steel making plant. The presented data, concerning a plant in the North part of Italy, come from an approach that took into account the advantages of different devices and sampling criteria: apart from conventional devices, two kinds of deposimeters have been used (for characterizing either total or wet/dry depositions). Their locations have been chosen taking into account the distance from the plant.

Findings

The paper demonstrates that the presence of diffused emissions plays an important (negative) role still today; thus a modern plant should reduce this kind of emission in order to be accepted from the population living in the surroundings. In the analyzed case study, the benefits of adopting the best available technologies can be seen from the temporal variability of the incidence of the plant.

Originality/value

The value of the paper is in the support that it can give to decision makers that must manage a steel making plant in an area.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thanks the Autonomous Province of Trento for the financial support to this research and the analytical effort demonstrated.

Citation

Rada, E.C., Ragazzi, M., Tubino, M., Gambaro, A., Turetta, C., Argiriadis, E., Vecchiato, M., Rossi, B. and Tava, M. (2016), "Characterization of metals in air and soil near a steel making plant in the North part of Italy", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 441-451. https://doi.org/10.1108/MEQ-03-2015-0044

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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