A Preliminary Assessment of As and F Uptake by Plants Growing on Uncontaminated Soils

Abstract

In Australia, the regulatory framework for assessing the risk of soil contamination assumes there is minimal risk from the natural enrichment of potentially toxic elements in soil. When this assumption is applied to land cleared for anthropogenic purposes, non-adapted biota including humans, domestic animals and garden plants can be exposed to these soils. While the impacts of natural arsenic (As) and fluorine (F) in waterways are widely reported, little is known about the biological impacts of natural As and F in non-aquatic soils. We investigated four field sites with naturally elevated soil As and F around Melbourne, Australia. All sites were assessed for As and F in soil, tree and herb (..