Objectives: The pollution status of heavy metals within the soil was investigated with an aim to establishing a sustainable soil environment within parks and amusement facilities installed in urban areas of Gyeonggi–do Province.
Methods: As sampling sites, 14 locations were selected from a city with a number of factories near a residential area, a residential area, and a children s park in a city with mixed green areas. Seven kinds of heavy metals, including Cd, Pb, and Hg, and the pH of soil were analyzed three times by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS).
Results: In this study, the pH of the samples from the residential park and industrial park showed 5.7-6.5 and 5.9-7.0, respectively. The overall mean concentration (mg/kg) of heavy metals was Zn (132.8), Ni (73.0), Cu (47.4), Pb (35.9), As (4.84), Cd (0.39), and Hg (0.07), indicating that these concentrations of heavy metals were lower than those for the area 1 standard of soil pollution concern criteria. In addition, the sampling sites in the residential area and the industrial area also showed the same tendency for concentration distribution.
Conclusions: We found that the soil pollution class (SPC) of some spots were over 200, which are third and fourth classes. In order to manage a sustainable soil environment in a city park, it is suggested that local governments, the management bodies for these parks, need to manage, supervise, and investigate soil pollution and quickly replace contaminated soil.

KeywordsChildren s park,soil pollution,heavy metal,residential area,industrial area