“…Therefore, they cannot be used as a local background value. The averaged concentrations of trace elements in natural soils from previously published studies (Degtyareva et al 2020;Podkolzin and Anziferov 2007) conducted in the Teberdinskiy biosphere nature reserve at the Caucasus mountains and at Kubano-Malkinskiy landscape at the foothill area were used as a geochemical background for calculating the indices for the study sites of the Central Caucasus.…”