Heavy Metal City-Zen. Exploring the potential risk of heavy metal contamination of food crop plants in urban gardening contexts using a citizen science approach.

Raw data (anonymised) of the citizen science project “Heavy Metal City-Zen”. The excel file includes measured data of plant and soil samples obtained from citizen science pot experiments conducted in eleven Viennese community gardens. In these experiments heavy metal concentrations (Pb, Zn, Cd) of plants (radish or spinach) grown in pots with compost mixtures (amendment) were compared against plants grown in a control variant (soils collected from their neighbourhoods). Relative chlorophyll content was measured by the citizen scientists with a chlorophyll meter by ten randomly chosen leaves per pot. Soil pH was determined with a pH-meter in a soil:solution (0,01 M CaCl2) w/v ratio of 1:2,5. Heavy metal analysis of soil and plant samples of the citizen science pot experiments were carried out after acid digestion or ammonium nitrate extraction using an AAS or ICP-OES.