The main objective of this study was concentrated in monitoring the
harmful impacts of industrial liquid wastes released from the industrial
activity of Misr Company for oil and soap at Kafr EL-Zeiyat city, ElGharbia Governorate, Egypt, that are directly through an outlet into an
adjacent irrigation canal on some soil physico-chemical properties of the
irrigated agricultural areas due to the possible chemical pollution of such
effluent wastes. Such polluted effluent chemical-wastes that discharged from
the performed industrial activity are not only directly contaminated the
neighbourhood irrigation water but also indirectly contaminated the irrigated
agriculture land. To achieve this target, samples of either irrigation water or
irrigated agriculture land were taken at distances 500, 1000 and 2000 m from
the main pollution source, comparing with unpolluted water-sample, for
monitoring the chemical changes in irrigation water as well as soil physicochemical properties of irrigated agriculture land.
The chemical analytical data of the available irrigation water source
along the different studied distances within the irrigation canal of Neanaiya,
reveal that the released liquid-wastes of the industrial activity are negatively
affected irrigation water quality, where its chemical characteristics as
represented by the values of water pH, ECiw, soluble ions (especially Na+, Cland HCO3-) and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), which showed a pronounced
tendency to increase. That was true, since the suitability criteria of irrigation
water resources showed that the studied irrigation water samples could be
categorized into three classes, i.e., third class (C3S3, water salinity of ECiw=
> 3.00 dS m-1 and sodicity of SAR= > 9), second class (C2S2, ECiw=0.75-
3.00 dS m-1 and SAR=6-9) and first class (C1S1, ECiw=< 0.75 dS m-1 and
SAR=< 6) for the water samples that were taken at distances of 500, 1000
and 2000 m from the main pollution source, respectively. Such chemical
irrigation water criteria were also associated with a parallel increase in soil
chemical properties, i.e., pH, ECe and exchangeable sodium percent (ESP)
as well as soil physical ones, i.e., fine aggregates, fine capillary pores, bulk
density, penetration resistance and saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks).
The reverse was true for each of total aggregates, coarse diameter
aggregates, mean weight diameter, stability index and water holding pores,
which showed pronounced decreases.