Silver is among the most toxic of heavy metals to a range of life forms and metabolic processes. Silver has been claimed to be one of the priority pollutants by the EPA of the USA. The Japan Association of Industrial Health recommended a threshold value for silver in the working environment of 0.01 mg m^<-3>, which was lower than the threshold values both for cadmium and mercury (0.05 mg m^<-3>). Therefore, it is very important to investigate the environmental contamination of silver. We had taken the soils and sediments near mines and/or smelters, and determined the concentrations of silver. The main results are as follows. 1) The wastewater containing silver from mines and/or smelters runs into rivers. Paddy soils irrigated by these river waters are contaminated with silver in the downstream areas far from the contamination sources. On the other hand, the silver in dusts and fumes from chimnies falls on the soils near the contamination sources and highly contaminates the soils. 2) Soil silver tends to accumulate in the surface horizons, especially organic-rich surface horizons. 3) The surface soils in 7 areas and the sediments in 5 areas near mines and/or smelters were taken, and the silver concentrations were determined. The geometric means of the soils were 0.172-1.47 mg kg^<-1> DW and maximum values were 0.417-9.05 mg kg^<-1> DW. The geometric means of the sediments were 0.772-11.8 mg kg^<-1> DW and maximum values were 2.34-125 mg kg^<-1> DW. 4) Correlation coefficients between the concentrations of silver and those of cadmium, zinc, lead or copper were calculated. In the case of the soils and sediments near the mines and/or smelters producing zinc, lead and/or copper, high correlation coefficients were obtained. Nevertheless, a high correlation was not obtained in the soils near mines and smelters producing silver using silver ore.
