Soil contamination with heavy metals as a potential and real risk to the environment

•The heavy metal content in natural and technogenic landscapes was investigated.•Ecological hazards caused by heavy metal compounds in soils were evaluated.•The concept of a real and potential risk to polluted soil was formulated.

The heavy metal content (Cu, Zn, Pb, Cd and Ni) in soils of natural landscapes and soils contaminated by these metals under technogenic and artificial conditions was investigated. Ecological hazards caused by heavy metal compounds in soils were evaluated. The concept of a real and potential risk to the ecosystem in addition to soil contamination with heavy metals was formulated. The ratio of weekly bound heavy metal content to the strongly bound content of metals was very informative parameter for the assessment of the ecological state of the polluted soils and evaluation of ameliorant effect to metal fixation in the soil.