Study of Heavy Metals in underground soil strata near Aligarh City

Abstract

The ground water gets contaminated by heavy metals by various anthropogenic activities such as sewage irrigation, electroplating, refinery, municipal solid waste dumping. However, the sorption of these heavy metals in the soil its mobility and distribution depend upon soil type, climate, and other natural and anthropogenic activities. These heavy metal contaminants are undesirable for the human health and the environment, and can produce toxicant effect by bio magnifications. The Effluent of every kind must be treated for the removal of heavy metals for contaminant free groundwater and healthy soil. The use of groundwater from the shallow hand-dug wells by host communities should be discouraged and alternative source of water should be provided by the company or government. Deep sited boreholes should be sunk to replace the existing shallow hand-dug wells in the area. It is concluded from the present study that the electroplating industries in Aligarh must either treat their electroplating wastewater for zero concentration in effluent or the operations of electroplating industries should be discontinued. If the present trend of Cadmium rich wastewater dumping persists, sooner or later it may cause kidney problems and cancer in these areas. The effluent of any type containing heavy metal must be treated before disposing it to prevent ground water contamination the characteristics of subsoil is different from those of the surface layer Zinc Lead and Chromium in the soil under analysis is lower than the permissible limits of world health organization Cadmium is found to be higher than the permissible limits of world health organization at all the three places in Aligarh.