One of the essential elements for the growth of living organisms, and one of the most naturally
abundant elements in the environment, Manganese has also a large range of anthropogenic sources, especially in industrialized urban areas. Perhaps because of the high tolerance of humans to Mn toxicity, the number of studies in Romania regarding it as a possible pollutant is very low, with none published for Bacau City. The data from 89 top soil samples dispersed across the entire area of the city and nearby surroundings were analysed using geostatistical Kriging interpolation in order to identify possible pollution sources and their range of influence. Three potential covariates, land use, road traffic and the height of buildings, were identified and their influence on Mn concentration was modelled using multiple regression. To represent the effect of road traffic,
two potential sources of pollution were predicted based on spatial analysis of the road network: (i) gas dispersion based on a 1 km spatial kernel smoother and (ii) mechanical friction based on a 10 m spatial kernel smoother. Land use was found to explain 50%, road traffic (both components were significant) 20.9% and the height of buildings 15.8%, of the variance in Mn concentration.