Authors
Abstract
Soil is an essential natural resource for support of human life, but with time, its
degradation has been constantly increasing due to the deposition of pollutants.
The aim of this research is to study the changes of the chemical properties of
the soil which has been irrigated for a long period with polluted river water, and
the effect of each property on the other properties.
The study was on the agricultural soil besides Army canal in Baghdad city
which is irrigated by the canal water. This canal ends at Al-Rustamia wastewater
treatment plant. Samples of soil which is irrigated and not irrigated with canal
water were taken. The samples were analyzed to find the chemical properties such
as heavy metals(Pb,Zn,Ni,Cr,Cd) and other parameters of soil (SO4
,Cl,TSS,pH,OM).
Samples were taken from points far from the canal (non irrigated soil), the
other samples have decreasing distances from the canal bank and the last one is just
at the river margin (irrigated soil) to find out the differences in chemical properties.
The relation between soil concentrations of heavy metals and the other
parameters in the chemical properties of the soil was studied the following results
were found: A positive corelation between SO4 and OM, TSS and EC was found,
also Zn and Pb with SO4, Zn and Pb with OM.
Also, a comparison was done between the properties of irrigated soil and the
properties of non irrigated soil. Results show that Pb and Ni increased out of the
allowable limits, Ec and TSS increment has also been found especially in the non
irrigated soil.
Keywords
)
