A tentative classification of agricultural foods exposed to roadside lead contamination

A systematic study of vegetables and other agricultural products used as foods, was performed, in order to suggest a tentative classification of products exposed to roadside lead pollution from automobile exhausts. A hyperbolic two-parameter function is used as an empirical model to describe the decrease in lead content with the distance from the line source. Regression analysis of the linearized function allows the estimation of the parameters. Polluted products are classified by means of cluster analysis.