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Environmental Risks Associated with The Leakage of Untreated Wastewaters in Industrial Areas

Article

Last updated: 01 Jan 2025

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Abstract

MANY countries around the world are forced to use wastewaters in plant production and their codes regulate such usage. However, these policies are not enough to stop their indirect impacts on the ecosystem. In Shobra El-Khema (Egypt), canals and agricultural drains still receive massive amounts of untreated industrial wastes and; therefore, the Egyptian government prohibited the usage of this wastewater for crop production. Alternatively, farmers use well water for irrigation; however, these shallow wells still receive wastewater leakage from the main drains and this probably possesses negative implications on the environment immediately or at least in the long-term. Accordingly, water, soil and plant samples were collected from these wastewater - contaminated areas wherein their contents of Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Cd, Co, Ni and Pb were investigated. The comprehensive pollution index (CPI) was then calculated for potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in water of both the main drain and the well waters (during the winter and summer seasons of 2016, 2017 and 2018). Results indicate that there was no significant variation in CPI between these two sources (P<0.05). On the other hand, ammonium bicarbonate–diethylene triamine penta acetic acid (AB-DTPA) extractable PTEs and their total contents increased progressively and significantly within the subsequent soil layers during the three successive years of study (P<0.05). In this concern, the highest concentrations of PTEs were detected within the top (0-15 cm) soil layer, while decreased with increasing soil depth. The grown plants nearby the main drain (especially leafy vegetables) accumulated high concentrations of PTEs in their shoots and these concentrations exceed the permissible levels of Pb and Cd. On the other hand, levels of soil pollution with PTEs decreased considerably with increasing the distance from the main drain in spite of that slight to moderate levels of soil pollution with PTEs were detected at 1000 m apart from the main drain. Thus, leakage of untreated wastewaters possesses high ecological risks that extents to a distance of one kilometer apart from the main drain.

DOI

10.21608/ejss.2019.18787.1319

Keywords

Untreated wastewater, environmental risks, shallow wells, potentially toxic elements, soil pollution index, comprehensive pollution index, organic pollution index

Authors

First Name

Mohamed

Last Name

Bassouny

MiddleName

Ahmed

Affiliation

Department of Soils and Water - Faculty of Agriculture - Benha University - Egypt

Email

bassouny_ma86@yahoo.com

City

-

Orcid

-

First Name

Mohamed

Last Name

Abbas

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Benha University, Faculty of Agriculture, Soils and Water department

Email

mohamed.abbas@fagr.bu.edu.eg

City

Obour

Orcid

0000-0002-1905-1241

First Name

Ibrahim

Last Name

Mohamed

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Soils and Water, Faculty of Agric., Benha University

Email

ibrahim.ali@fagr.bu.edu.eg

City

-

Orcid

0000-0001-8385-8771

Volume

60

Article Issue

2

Related Issue

14011

Issue Date

2020-06-01

Receive Date

2019-10-28

Publish Date

2020-06-01

Page Start

109

Page End

128

Print ISSN

0302-6701

Online ISSN

2357-0369

Link

https://ejss.journals.ekb.eg/article_67780.html

Detail API

https://ejss.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=67780

Order

23

Type

Original Article

Type Code

19

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of Soil Science

Publication Link

https://ejss.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Environmental Risks Associated with The Leakage of Untreated Wastewaters in Industrial Areas

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023