Heavy metals evaluation in soil of agricultural field around a pond of gas plant in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

الملخص EN

This study was carried out to evaluate the limits of the heavy metals in soil around a produced water pond and the effect of the produced water on soil heavy metals in a gas facility in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

The heavy metals (Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Hg and Pb) were analyzed from soil samples taken from different distances of (5, 10, 15, 20 and 25) meters from the pond.

The experiment was designed in complete randomized design with 4 replications.

The results showed that there were significant differences of mean values for some of the heavy metals in relation to the distances (Ni, Zn, Cu, Pb, Co).

The limits of the heavy metals were then compared to maximum permissible limit (MPL) values of the heavy metals in soil by World Health Organization and Environmental Baseline Survey.

It was evident that some of the heavy metals were within the normal range (Pb, Hg, Cd and Cu) and the others exceeded the normal range in the soil (Zn and Cr).