Marzouk, E. (2017). Assessing Heavy Metals Speciation and their Concentrations in Vegetables Grown on Peri-Urban Soils. Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering, 8(3), 93-100. doi: 10.21608/jssae.2017.37227
E. Marzouk. "Assessing Heavy Metals Speciation and their Concentrations in Vegetables Grown on Peri-Urban Soils". Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering, 8, 3, 2017, 93-100. doi: 10.21608/jssae.2017.37227
Marzouk, E. (2017). 'Assessing Heavy Metals Speciation and their Concentrations in Vegetables Grown on Peri-Urban Soils', Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering, 8(3), pp. 93-100. doi: 10.21608/jssae.2017.37227
Marzouk, E. Assessing Heavy Metals Speciation and their Concentrations in Vegetables Grown on Peri-Urban Soils. Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering, 2017; 8(3): 93-100. doi: 10.21608/jssae.2017.37227
Assessing Heavy Metals Speciation and their Concentrations in Vegetables Grown on Peri-Urban Soils
Division of Soil and Water Sciences, Faculty of Environmental Agricultural Sciences, Arish University, North Sinai 45516, Egypt
Abstract
In this study, 18 top peri-urban soil samples with 18 edible portions from okra and eggplant were collected from peri-urban area of Alexandria city, Egypt. Results showed that all studied heavy metals concentrations in soils were in the safe limits and followed the order of Cu > Pb > Ni > Cd. Sequential extraction procedure (SEP) showed that metals were identified as hosted by Fe-Mn oxides and residual fractions for Ni, Cu and Pb and by carbonate and residual fractions for Cd. The plant metal concentrations showed lower values than those reported by WHO/FAO, implying that studied vegetables were safer to consume. Translocation factor (TF) values of heavy metals differed between different locations and plant species; TF followed the order of Cu > Pb > Ni > Cd and Cu > Cd > Ni > Pb for okra and eggplant edible portions, respectively. The plant metal concentration showed no corresponding values with any single extraction of SEP or summation of extractions (F1-F2, F1-F3 and F1-F4). Lack of such relationship with plant metal concentrations indicated that the availability of Ni, Cu, Cd and Pb is controlled to a great degree by soil properties’ interactions. Therefore, multi-regression model that used to predict metal concentrations in plant showed a relative high performance when the sum F1-F2 of SEP used as input variable instead of total metal concentrations. Undoubtedly prediction model could be improved by including more soil features in the regression model but from pragmatic view of point simple soil characteristics has gained a favor to predict metal plant concentration. The predicted metal concentration in plant follows the order Pb > Cu > Ni > Cd.