Abstract
Severe human health risks can be caused by consuming vegetables contaminated by heavy metals (HMs); thus, assessing the HM uptake by these plants is important The current work was performed to construct a regression model for predicting the concentration of ten HMs in four tissues of Phaseolus vulgaris (mots, stems, leaves and pods) based on their concentration in a soil-sludge mixture, soil organic matter (OM) and soil pH. For pods, the regression equation with the highest coefficient of determination (R-2 = 0.99) and model efficiency (ME = 1.00) but the lowest mean normalized bias (MNB = 0.01) was that of cobalt. For leaves, the equation with the highest R-2 (0.90) and ME (0.92) but the lowest MNB (0.001) was that of molybdenum. Comparable fmdings were obtained for molybdenum in the stems and manganese in the roots. All t values that assessed the difference between the actual and predicted values of the ten HMs in the four tissues were nonsignificant. Thus, these models could be used as a risk assessment tool for P. vulgaris cultivated in soil-sludge combinations.