physical, chemical, or biological characteristics of the water,
air, and soil that can harmfully affect health, survival, or
activities of humans or other living organisms, the
"contamination" refers to elevated presence of hazardous
and undesirable elements or substances in water, air, or soil,
due to the activities of man, that are not necessarily harmful,
and the "loading" signifies the quantitatively expressed
presence of such elements or substances, measured by
different methods. The loading/pollution index represents
the ratio between the content of one heavy metal,
analytically measured in soil, and its reference loading
value, determined by computation according to the Dutch
system formulae (A value in the ABC series). The index
values lower than 1 characterize the soil loading range, and
those higher than 1 characterize the pollution range.