Assessment of Soil Quality Characteristics and Pollution Status of Farm Lands within Ugwuele Quarry Site, Uturu Abia State Nigeria

Francis Ugochukwu Madu¹ , Emmanuel Iroha Akubugwo² , Friday Obinwa Uhegbu³ , Kelechi Uzoma Osuocha⁴

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.6 , Issue.7 , pp.52-59, Jul-2020

Online published on Jul 31, 2020

Copyright © Francis Ugochukwu Madu, Emmanuel Iroha Akubugwo, Friday Obinwa Uhegbu, Kelechi Uzoma Osuocha . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
Assessment of physicochemical characteristics, soil enzymes and heavy metal concentrations of soil samples from farm lands within Ugwuele quarry site was carried out in both wet and dry seasons using standard analytical procedures. Soil samples were collected from different cardinal points of 200m and 400m from the centre, at depths of 0-30cm and 31-60cm. The result from this study shows that the soil temperature of the quarry site was higher in the dry season compared to wet season and decreased with increase in soil depth. Soil pH of the quarry soils was low and therefore acidic and ranged from 3.86?0.06 to 4.64?0.03. The result also shows that soil organic matter decreased from 31.10?0.85 to 1.34?0.01%. The soil enzymes; urease, alkaline phosphatase (ALP), acid phosphatase, hydrogen peroxidase and dehydrogenase decreased significantly (p˂0.05) compared to control. Urease varied from 11.76?0.14 to 2.90?0.01, ALP 5.66?0.10 to 1.00?0.01mg/h, acid phosphatase 9.70?0.12 to 1.28?0.05mg/g/h, Hydrogen peroxidase 1.02?0.10 to 0.03?0.01m10.0ML-1KMnO4g-1, dehydrogenase 5.44?0.16 to 1.01?0.02mgTPFg-1drysoil6h-1(x10-5).The heavy metals (Co, Zn, Cr, Cd, As and Pb) were all present in the quarry soil and were significantly higher compared (p˂0.05) to the control. It is therefore evident that quarry activities at Ugwuele decreased the fertility and suitability of the soil for growing crops

Key-Words / Index Term :
Quarry, heavy metals, soil enzymes, wet season, dry season

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