Human nail usage as a Bio-indicator in contamination monitoring of heavy metals in Dizajabaad, Zanjan province-Iran

Background: due to pedogeochemical background and anthropogenic sources, heavy metal contamination of soilis a widespread problem in some parts of zanjan province located in north west iran. in this study an affected arealocated near national iranian lead and zinc company (nilz) was selected for detailed study.methodology: thirty soil samples and eighteen leaf samples were collected and analyzed for heavy metalcontamination by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (icp-oes). both soil and plantsamples were found to be basically polluted by pb (72.60 and 97.11), zn (546.47 and 166.61), and cd (1.80and 1.55) mg. kg?1 respectively. high concentrations of these elements in soil and plant species signifiespossible health risks to humans. the distribution maps drawn using arc gis (10) show high concentrationsof these toxic metals around dizajabaad village. to assess vulnerability and health risks of metal concentrationsin human bodies’ twenty nine fingernail samples were also collected from people living in this village.results and discussion: analysis for different heavy metal contents of nail samples reveals very high levels of thesame toxic elements (pb = 15.15, cd = 1.18, as = 15.47, zn = 68.46 and ni = 18.22 mg. kg?1) compared with samplescollected from an unaffected area and available values indicated in the literature. further, high concentration of heavymetals in the nail samples suggests long term exposure of inhabitants to these toxic metals.