DOI: 10.5061/dryad.h18931zr8
title: Concentration of metals and base cations in green stormwater infrastructure soils

description: Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) is adopted to reduce the impact of
 stormwater on urban flooding and water quality issues. Traditional methods
 use inflow versus outflow metal and base cation concentrations from water
 samples at inlet and outlet to determine accumulation in GSI basins which
 can be expensive sometimes. Soil sampling could be a more cost-effective
 and time-averaged approach in evaluating the accumulation of metals and
 base cations in GSI compared to the traditional methods. This dataset
 presents data from twenty-one GSI basins soils located in New York and
 Pennsylvania, USA. The dataset contains a description of GSI basins
 considered in the study and the concentration of metals and base cations
 in those basins. The dataset includes concentrations of 3 base cations
 (Ca, Mg, Na) and 6 metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn). Various GSI basin
 characteristics are included in the dataset which includes information
 such as age of the basins, sources of runoff draining into the GSI basins,
 and drainage area ratio (ratio of the area draining into a GSI basin to
 the area of the GSI basin itself).
description: Twenty-one GSI basins were considered which were concentrated
 around two locations – The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) and
 Cornell University. Twelve GSI basins around Penn State University and
 nine GSI basins around Cornell University were sampled in this
 study. <strong>(a) Soil samples collection:
 </strong> Three locations at each site were
 chosen for the collection of soil samples: (i) reference, a location that
 does not receive the stormwater runoff from any impervious areas, (ii)
 inlet of the basin, through which the stormwater runoff enters, and (iii)
 pool of the basin, where runoff is detained and/or infiltrated. The soil
 samples were collected using a hand-held 1.9 cm diameter tubular steel
 soil core sampler. Five-cm deep soil core samples were collected at random
 from all locations since the metals are likely to be accumulated in the
 topsoil and their median concentration is likely higher in the surface. At
 Penn State sites, five samples from each location (reference, inlet and
 pool) in the GSI basin were collected for, which occurred in 2019. At
 Cornell sites, five samples were collected from reference, four samples
 from pool, and three samples from inlet locations of each basin during
 2009. <strong>(b) Metals and base cations
 concentration:</strong> The soil samples were
 first oven dried at 105°C and then ground with mortar and pestle, and
 sieved to remove particles larger than 2 mm. 0.5g of each dry soil sample
 was collected in test tubes and mixed well for homogeneity. The acid
 digestion of soil samples from Penn State for metals extraction by
 inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) was
 carried out according to EPA method 3050B. This digestion is intended to
 represent environmentally available metals that could become
 available/soluble under various environmental conditions, but does not
 represent a complete digestion of all metals contained in the soil matrix.
 The reported detection limit for the ICP-AES analysis at the Penn State
 Laboratory of Isotopes and Metals in the Environment was 0.01ppm for all
 base cations and 0.005 ppm for all metals. The method for acid digestion
 of soil samples at Cornell sites was a modification of EPA method 3050A
 and was thus slightly different from the one used for Penn State samples,
 given that the samples were originally collected for different projects at
 the two institutions. The dry mass of each soil sample used for the
 digestion at Cornell was 0.25g. These soil samples were mixed with 5ml of
 1.0M nitric acid and incubated overnight at room temperature. They were
 then digested on a hotplate for one hour at 100°C. The digestate was
 diluted with 15 mL de-ionized water and centrifuged. The supernatant was
 analyzed via ICP-AES analysis in the Cornell Soil and Water Lab. The
 method detection limit established in the Cornell lab was reported as 0.05
 ppm. The concentration of nine metals and base cations in the original
 soil sample – cadmium (Cd), calcium (Ca), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), lead
 (Pb), magnesium (Mg), nickel (Ni), sodium (Na), and zinc (Zn) were
 obtained.
description: Two CSV files are attached: (i) Metals and base cations
 concentrations, which include concentrations at inlet, pool and reference
 locations at all sites, and (ii) General site characteristics which
 include information such as GSI basin area, Impervious drainage area
 draining into the GSI basin, age during the sampling, main water source,
 types of GSI basin, and more. One README file is also provided where
 description of various abbreviations in the dataset along with any other
 relevant information is provided.