Comprehensive
assessment of heavy metal contaminations in agricultural soil through Pollution
Indices from a rapidly developing city of India
Dipti, Kumar Pradeep, Dwivedi Sanjay and Singh Rana Pratap
Res. J. Chem. Environ; Vol. 27(8); 115-122;
doi: https://doi.org/10.25303/2708rjce1150122; (2023)
Abstract
This study has been conducted for the comprehensive evaluation of heavy metals (HMs)
contamination such as Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb in agricultural soils via
pollution indices i.e. geoaccumulation index (Igeo), contamination degree (CD),
pollution load index (PLI), potential ecological risk (PRI) etc. Assessment for
the determination of ecological damage was caused by these HMs in different agro-ecosystems
around metropolitan city Lucknow. For this, data has been taken from our previous
study8 depicting significant enrichment of above mentioned HMs in agricultural soil
present near riparian areas, brick kilns, waste dump sites etc. Our results indicated
that soil samples collected from Gaughat (GAF) and Sitapur (SAF) showed very high
degree of contamination (CD>24). Further, pollution load index also reflected “very
high” and “moderate to high” contamination with values 6.9075 and 3.3214 in these
two sites respectively. Overall, Igeo values indicated moderate contamination with
Mn and Ni metals and low contamination with Cr, Cu, Zn and Cd metals.
However, Igeo with value 4.923 indicated extremely high degree of contamination
due to Cd in Gaughat (GAF) soil. In the view of potential ecological risk index,
GAF site poses a “very high” potential ecological risk while maximum sites pose
“moderate” ecological risk. The ecological risk factor in agricultural soil was
in the following descending order: Cd > Ni > Cu > Pb > Cr > Mn > Zn > Fe. Cadmium
predominantly contributes significant amount to the PRI of soil while Ni, Cu, Pb,
Cr, Mn and Zn showed low ecological risk.
