Assessment of Heavy Metal Contamination in Sugar Beet (Beta Vulgaris) Plant Along Erzincan–Erzurum Highway in Eastern Anatolia Region

In this study, it was aimed to determine the traffic and agricultural activity-induced heavy metal including arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr) and lead (Pb) pollution of sugar beet plants (Beta Vulgaris) grown along the Erzincan-Erzurum D100-25 highway and to reveal the possible change in the amount of heavy metals in sugar beet plants depending on distance to the highway. For this purpose, sugar beet plants were collected from 5 points of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 meters away from the highway and heavy metal levels of the samples were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results showed that sugar beet plants were contaminated with various heavy metals such as Cr (585.5-2687.8 µg kg-1) > Co (143.4-500.7 µg kg-1) > Pb (52.1-476.7 µg kg-1) > As (9.1-112.4 µg kg-1) > Cd (4.4-65.2 µg kg-1) depending on the distance from the highway. It was determined that heavy metal pollution levels in sugar beet plants decreased with distance from the motorway and there was a high correlation (As: 0.977; Cd: 0.944; Co: 0.995; Cr: 0.989 and Pb: 0.999) between distance and heavy metal content.