Metal leaching in a highway embankment on field and laboratory scale

Increasing worldwide motor vehicle traffic leads to the question of the possible environmental consequences. This paper aims to analyse metal leaching in a highway embankment using both field and laboratory experiments. Soil, soil solution and road runoff were collected along one of the oldest highways in the world to characterize leaching of the metals Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn. Batch, column and adsorption experiments were carried out to study the reliability and transferability of laboratory approaches. Depending on the element, the ratio of particle-bound metals in road runoff varied between 15–90%. Metal levels in embankment soils were significantly higher compared to a reference site in a forest at 800m distance (up a factor of 30). High metal concentrations in soil solution at 50cm soil depth were not a direct result of road runoff but rather of elevated concentrations in the soil matrix. The use of batch S4 elution was found to be the best overall laboratory method to predict soil solution concentrations in field. Adsorption experiments showed a relative increase in retention capacity in roadside soil of up to a factor of 20 after nearly 100years of operation. The input of alkaline dust and organic carbon into roadside soils increases its retention capacity in the long term. •Metal levels in the embankment were up to 30 times higher than at 800m distance•Concentration of all metals exceeded the target values of the German legislation•Dissolved metal concentrations in soil solution were higher than in the road runoff•Retardation capacity of AVUS roadside soil increased during operational time•Metal concentrations of 1:10 elution are in a similar range as field soil solution data