Graduation Year

2025

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Department

Environmental Analysis

Reader 1

Marc Los Huertos

Reader 2

Colin Robins

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Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Abstract

In the era of increasing industrialization, more of the soil surrounding us is urban in nature and anthropogenically modified. The introduction of greenspaces in the urban environment have encouraged environmental cleanliness, of which, soils are the foundation of. To establish the importance of a good quality soil in an urban environment, the soils in an urban environmentally cleanly location versus a location focused on industrial production were evaluated and measured against each other. To evaluate soils quality and fertility, texture, pH, Soil Organic Matter, and Elemental makeup was measured. These characteristics were measured through the Hydrometer method, the saturated paste method, through LOI, and through X-Ray Fluorescence. Sites from all around the Inland Empire were evaluated and split into two locations per site – a “Polluted” and “Remediated” location. Polluted locations were areas of land adjacent to a source of pollution, such as distribution or metal product fabrication. Meanwhile, Remediated locations were urban farms. Results showed polluted locations to be Sandy clay loams while remediated locations were Clays, Clay loams, and Sandy Clay loams. Average pH of the remediated locations was 7.53, while polluted locations pH oscillated from pH 6.66 to 8.07. Organic matter concentrations in remediated soils ranged from 5-40%, while in polluted soils, ranged from 2-4%. Differences between Heavy Metal concentrations amongst polluted and remediated soils were statistically significant for chromium, manganese, zinc, and arsenic (P-values of 0.05, 0.007, 0.042, 0.023 respectively) while concentrations of copper and lead failed to be significant (P-values of 0.29 and 0.08 respectively). This data demonstrates that soils in the remediated, urban farm locations have a positive impact on human and environmental health and are therefore more efficient soils. Without barriers, soils in urban settings such as the Inland Empire are able to succeed.

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