Arsenic Distribution Assessment in a Residential Area Polluted with Mining Residues

Mining is a major source for metals and metalloids pollution, which could pose a risk for human health. In San Guillermo, Chihuahua, Mexico mining wastes are found adjacent to a residential area. A soil-surface sampling was performed, collecting 88 samples for arsenic determination by atomic absorption. Arsenic concentration data set was interpolated using the ArcGis models: inverse distance weighting (IDW), ordinary kriging (OK), and radial basis function (RBF). For method validation purposes, a set of the data was selected and two tests were performed (P1 and P2). In P1 the models were processed without the validation data; in P2 the validation data were removed one by one, models were processed every time that a data point was removed. An arsenic concentration range of 22.7 to 2190 mg/kg was reported. The 39% of data set was classified as contaminated soil and 61% as industrial land use. In P1 the method of interpolation with the lowest RMSE was RBF (0.80), the highest coefficient of E was RBF (46.25), and the highest Ceff value was with RBF (0.48). In P2 the method with the lowest RMSE was OK (0.76), the highest E value was 50.65 with OK, and the Ceff reported the highest value with OK (0.52). The high arsenic contamination in soil of the site indicates an abundant dispersion of this metalloid. Furthermore, the difference between the models was not very wide. The incorporation of more parameters would be of interest to observe the behavior of interpolation methods.