Urban Soil Heavy Metal Contamination in Lafayette, LA, Exceeding Regulatory Levels

1,290 urban soil samples from Lafayette, Louisiana, measure the percentage exceeding USEPA, LDEQ, and local background levels for heavy metals. The dataset was published by Holly L. Heafner and last updated in March 2026. It is a small, 5.5 KB Excel file containing calculated pollution indices and correlations for specific metal(loid)s.

Use Cases

• Assess urban soil contamination risk based on calculated pollution indices.
• Compare measured heavy metal concentrations against multiple regulatory screening levels.
• Investigate correlations between soil properties and metal contamination mentioned in platform tags.
• Identify contamination profiles for specific metals like Pb and Zn referenced in the tags.

Strengths

• Contains 1,290 soil samples, providing a substantial local sample size.
• Compares contamination against three distinct benchmarks: USEPA, LDEQ, and local background levels.
• Includes derived metrics like a calculated pollution index and Spearman correlations, as indicated by platform tags.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The 5.5 KB size suggests a very limited scope, likely containing summary statistics rather than raw sample data.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Holly L. Heafner.

Collection Method

Likely contains laboratory analysis results from composite urban topsoil samples.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-18 17:37:31; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Lafayette, Louisiana, USA.