ABSTRACTS
Exception of iron, all heavy metals above a concentration of 0.1% in the soil become toxic to plants and therefore change the root Environment community structure of plants in a polluted habitat (Ernst 1982).
Soil contamination is generally attributed to degradation of its chemical and biological properties may be to physical properties as well. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of some soil physical properties, i.e. soil organic matter (OM), void ratio (VR), soil texture (clay %) and water holding capacity (WHC) on heavy metals content.
The achieved results could be summarized in the following:
Void ratio correlated significantly with organic matter and clay percent, as well as water holding capacity as all increased by increasing void ratio. Heavy metals, i.e. Mn and Ni concentration increased as a result of increasing soil organic matter while Fe has non significant relation. But, when organic matter coupled with other soil studied physical properties show a highly significant on Fe Concentration (R=0.908***) . Increase in clay percent led to increasing concentration of Ni while, Fe and Mn show a non significant relation. Also, all studied heavy metals increase significantly with increasing void ratio and water holding capacity.