Status Quo of Soil Contamination with Inorganic and Organic Pollutants of the River Oka Floodplains (Russia)

The contamination status of rivers and their floodplains with inorganic and organic pollutants in central Russia is poorly known. We investigated the concentrations of inorganic (As, Cd, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb and Zn) and persistent organic pollutants (hexachlorocyclohexane, PCBs, cyclodienes, DDX and other pesticides) in floodplain soils of the Oka River catchment (Russia). The level of contamination was generally lower than in the Elbe River floodplain but in the same range as in other European river systems such as floodplains of the rivers Rhine, Dřevnice and Yachroma. Only soil samples from the periphery of the city of Ryazan (200 km southeast of Moscow) had a higher anthropogenic enrichment of Cd, Cu and Zn which was comparable to the contaminated Elbe River floodplains. These soils also had the largest concentrations of persistent organic pollutants among all samples from the Oka River catchment. Therefore, the need for large-scale remediation seems to be less urgent than in Central European river catchments and mainly restricted to some “hot spot” areas.