Poster: A comparison of soil chemical characteristics: urban and rural gradients of Baltimore and New York, and cities of Baltimore and Budapest.
 
Yesilonis, Ian, Richard Pouyat, Kathy Szlavecz, and Jonathan Russell-Anelli

 
Soils located in metropolitan areas are known to be contaminated by heavy metals. In this poster, we investigate the spatial distribution of the heavy metals along with other characteristics such as organic matter and pH in surface soils in the cities of Baltimore and Budapest. Principal component analysis was performed on the data as a reduction technique to determine components or factors which are weighted combinations of the input variables. Regional patterns of heavy metal concentrations can be explained by geochemical properties of mineral soil and parent material, and atmospheric deposition.