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Abstract
Heavy metals presence in the air in the territory of Kosovo was estimated using mosses as biomonitors. The periodic smog over the territory of Kosovo, particularly around industrial sites and cities, is a clear indication of air pollution which unavoidably will contain heavy metals, because of the nature of the industries in area. This work was carried out aming to assess the presence of heavy metals in the air, identify the most polluted sites, and the origins of pollution. Heavy metals such as Al, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb, and Zn, were determined in 45 moss samples. Statistical analysis was performed to better explain the data. The most polluted sites appeared to be in Zveqan, Stanterg, Prapashticë, Siboc, and Lupç. The contamination factor (CF) showed that only Cu and Zn had no or almost no contamination levels over the range of moss samples with CF < 1, while Cd and Pb gave extremely high values, CF > 27. Pollution load index (PLI) also showed that only a few samples are moderately polluted 2 < PLI ≤ 3, while most of the samples appeared to be highly polluted 4 < PLI ≤ 5, and very highly polluted PLI > 5.
Acknowledgement
We thank the Kosovo Agency for Environment Protection and Afrim Berisha for collaboration during this research project.
Disclosure statement
The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.
Funding
The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.
Data availability statement
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.