Due to accumulation of heavy metals in soil and its risk to human health, their recognition, origin and distribution have attracted considerable interest in recent years. Using chemical methods to evaluate soil pollution is difficult and time consuming. In many recent studies magnetic susceptibility measurements have been employed for pollution monitoring as a non-destructive and fast technique. The objective of this study was to determine land use effects on magnetic susceptibility and heavy metals concentration in Ahvaz district. Selected sites included land located around the Ramin and Zergan power plants, Ahvaz steel company, agricultural land and urban soils of Ahvaz. A total of 20 surface soil samples from a depth of 0 to 5 cm from each site and a total of 100 samples were taken from the area and their locations were determined by a GPS device. After preparation, the magnetic susceptibility (? lf and ? hf ) and concentration of total Zinc (Zn), Manganese (Mn), Iron (Fe), Copper (Cu), Nickel (Ni), Cobalt (Co), Chromium (Cr), Lead (Pb) and Cadmium (Cd) were measured in the soil sampled after extraction by acid nitric. Frequency dependent magnetic susceptibility (? fd ) was also calculated by the ratio of magnetic susceptibility in low and high frequency. Using some criteria such as contamination factor (CF) pollution load index (PLI) soils of the studied area were Keywords : Magnetic properties, Heavy metal, Soil pollution, Anthropogenic activities, Contamination factors, Pollution load index
