ASSESSMENT AND DISTRIBUTION OF TRACE ELEMENTS IN SOILS AND VEGETABLES CULTIVATED ALONG THE BANK OF RIVER NGADDA AND ALAU DAM IN MAIDUGURI, BORNO STATE
ASSESSMENT AND DISTRIBUTION OF TRACE ELEMENTS IN SOILS AND VEGETABLES CULTIVATED ALONG THE BANK OF RIVER NGADDA AND ALAU DAM IN MAIDUGURI, BORNO STATE
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Date
2016-07
Authors
BUKAR, PAUL HENA
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Abstract
The levels of trace elements and their distribution in Soil, sediments water and vegetables namely Amaranthus (Amaranthus tricolor), Guinea Sorrel (Hibiscus sabdariffa), Okro (Abelmechus esculentum), Lettuce (Lactuca sativa), Tomato (lycopersicon esculentum), Ben Oil (Moringa oleifera) and Water leaf (Talinum tringulare) samples collected from farmlands along the banks of river Ngadda and Alau dam was determined using the complimentary techniques of Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) and Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry (AAS). The aim of the work was to find the extent to which the above named vegetables cultivated during dry season otherwise referred to as fadama farming along the bank of river Ngadda and Alau Dam through irrigation had bio-accumulated trace elements, the possible sources of these metal toxicants, to establish whether the soils, sediments and water of river Ngadda and Alau dam used in irrigating the vegetables were accumulated with metal toxicants and to determine the correlation between the metals toxicants in soil and sediments samples viz a viz the vegetables collected from the different sites. Pearson correlation analysis of soil samples showed that forty five elements had positive correlation coefficients (r ≥ 0.5) at significant difference value p ≤ 0.05 and five had (r ≥ - 0.5) at p ≤ 0.05. For sediments samples ninety six had (r ≥ 0.5) at p ≤ 0.05 and nine elements had (r ≥ - 0.5) at p ≤ 0.05.Assessment of the concentrations of the metal pollutants in vegetable samples showed that those elements that had high concentrations in soil samples had corresponding high concentration in the vegetable samples collected at the same site. For example concentration of Aluminum in soil sample at site one (S1) was 34470 ± 241ppm and the concentration of Aluminum in Amaranthus at site one (A1) was 1023 ± 426ppm; Fe in soil sample at site one was (S1)
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was 10420 ± 240 ppm, Fe in Amaranthus at site one (A1) was 640 ± 54 ppm; Zn in soil (S1) was 54 ± 3 ppm, Fe in amaranthus (A1) was 22 ± 2 ppm. At site two, concentration of Zn in soil samples (S2) was 24 ± 3 ppm Zn in amaranthus samples at site two (A2) was 36 ± 3 ppm. At site three Fe in soil samples (S3) was 9982 ± 294 ppm, Fe in amaranthis samples from site three (A3) 558 ± 37 ppm, Zn in soil samples at site three (S3) was 46 ± 5 ppm, Zn in amaranthus samples (A3) was 85 ± 4 ppm;. At site four the concentration of Fe in soil samples (S4) was 9529 ± 229ppm while Fe concentration in amaranthus samples at site four (A4) was 655 ± 40, while Cr in soil samples at site four (S4) was 29 ± 3ppm, Cr concentration in amaranthus samples at site four (A4) was 88 ± 21ppm. This suggests that there was a linear correlation between the concentrations of elements in the soil and some of the vegetables cultivated on the soil. The cluster analysis using WARD‟s procedure on soil data produced a dendrogram consisting of two clusters S1, S4, S5, S10, S11, and S14 with similarity at 96.5%; and S2, S6, S8, S9, S12, S13, and S0 with similarity at 90.86% with an outlier S3 while that of sediment produced two clusters SS1, SS4, SS5, SS6, and SS9 with similarity at 89.07%; and SS3, and SS10, with similarity at 70.54% with SS2 as outlier. For water samples data the cluster dendrogram produced three clusters H1, H2, H3, H9 and H13 with similarity at 96.2%; H4, H10, H11 and H12, with similarity at 78.6% and H5, H6, H7 and H8.with similarity at 78.5%. The trace elements Co, Cr, Mn, Zn and Fe in most of the vegetables samples investigated had bio-accumulated concentrations above the WHO/FAO maximum permissible limits (MPL) and the elements Cd, Co, Cr, Fe, Ni and Pb in water samples were above the recommended safe limit for continuous irrigation purposes. Thus the water required elaborate purification for portability and is unsafe for continuous irrigation purposes
Description
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA, NIGERIA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT FOR THE AWARD OF THE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE IN PHYSICS DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA, NIGERIA
Keywords
ASSESSMENT,, DISTRIBUTION,, TRACE ELEMENTS,, SOILS AND VEGETABLES CULTIVATED,, BANK OF RIVER NGADDA AND ALAU DAM,, MAIDUGURI,, BORNO STATE,