ABSTRACT
In the preset work, seven soil profiles were taken from El Qattara, New
Valley, to evaluate the physical and chemical properties and it relationship with
existing heavy metals and its possibility for growing various crops. In general,
the New Valley Governorate is considered one of most promising areas for the
agricultural development in Egypt. So that, it was very important to quantify the
variability of heavy metals containing cultivated soils in New Valley area. The
obtained results showed that different soil map units were represented in the
studied soil profiles such as 1) moderately deep coarse textured soils, 2)
moderately deep and moderately coarse textured soils, and 3) deep and
moderately to fine textured soils.
The concentrations of available heavy metals including Fe, Cu, Zn,
and Mn were relatively low. The correlation between the studied chemical
and physical properties were found to be osculated among the positively and
negatively values, and there was no stable tendency observed within the
studied available and total heavy metals. The concentrations of available
heavy metals were relatively low and were ranged among 8.15 – 10.48 mg
kg-1 for Fe, 0.18 – 0.23 mg kg-1 for Cu, 0.41- 0.65 mg kg-1for Zn, and 1.01 –
2.59 mg kg-1 for Mn. It was noticed that the concentrations of available Mn,
total Zn, total Ni, total Pb, and total Cr in the studied soil profiles were the
most heavy metals that correlated positively with soil chemical properties.
All the surface layer in all profiles suffer increasing in EFs of heavy metals
from significant to very high and extremely enrichment.