4. CONCLUSIONS
AAS and EDXRF techniques have been employed in order to evaluate the pollution of soil with heavy metals in the vicinity of Iron and Steel Integrated Works (ISIW) at Galati, Romania, which is one of the most important metallurgical complexes in the South -East of Europe. From the experimental results presented in this work it can be seen that the concentrations of heavy elements decrease with the distance from the metallurgical works and they are greater than the ones detected in the control soil collected from a zone situated far from traffic and industrial activity. For the majority of metals, pronounced maximum concentrations for all depths were detected in the locations near the South gate of ISIW, in the prevailing wind direction. The comparison of the soil heavy metal concentrations with the maximum values admitted by the Romanian guideline has also been made. The soils located in influence zones of industrial objectives with ferrous processing activities recorded heavy metals loading (contamination) or pollution.