Assessment of heavy metals contamination levels in road dust from the busy traffic areas

Cities like Muscat and many fast developing cites around the world have been chocked with increasing heavy traffic. Fast movement of vehicles which is typical characteristics of many road networks in Muscat combined with busy traffic conditions can produce large amount of road dust. Heavy metals produced by vehicular exhaust as well as road, tire and brake abrasion can be deposited in road dust. These dusts can get easily re-suspended back in to atmospheric aerosols by wind and movement of vehicles and become a cause of public health concern. This study thus aimed to compare the dusts from varying road characteristics (roundabouts, downtown roads, highways and background /reference roads) by investigating the most commonly released heavy metals such as Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, Ni from vehicles and road dusts. The metals in the road samples will be analyzed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). The resulting data will be used to estimate the contamination factor in road dust and the degree of metal contamination that might bring some vital information for the future decision making in the area of study.