Urban Soil Heavy Metal Concentrations by Land Use Category Worldwide

A global compilation of heavy metal and metalloid concentrations in urban soils, measured in milligrams per kilogram. The dataset was created by Holly L. Heafner and is available under a CC-BY-4.0 license. It was last updated on March 18, 2026.

Use Cases

• Compare heavy metal contamination levels based on land use categories mentioned in the description.
• Calculate pollution indices for urban areas based on the reported metal concentrations.
• Assess soil quality against screening values for metals like Pb, Zn, and Mn.
• Investigate correlations between soil properties and metal contamination profiles.

Strengths

• Data is explicitly licensed for reuse under CC-BY-4.0.
• The dataset includes a global scope of urban soil studies.
• File size is 21.5 KB, making it quick to download and inspect.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Holly L. Heafner via figshare

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-18 17:37:36; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Worldwide