SUITMA 2005 Cairo - Monitoring, modeling geochemistry, and fate of heavy metals in a small catchment in Egypt
SUITMA 2005 Cairo
| This abstract is about one of the papers of the Methodology and classification theme of the SUITMA 2005 symposium. |
| Ahmed A. Melegy.i |
- i - Department of Geological Sciences, National Research Centre, Cairo, Egypt.
Industrial development and urbanization in the last few decades have led to dramatic increase in the amount of effluents discharged into natural environments. Research on distribution and fate of heavy metals in different environmental compartments has received a remarkable attention from various scientific domains (e.g. geology, pedology, chemistry, agronomy, botany). Heavy metals may enter the human body through food, water, air, or absorption through the skin when they come in contact with humans in agriculture and in manufacturing, industrial, or residential settings.
Modeling geochemistry of the Shubra El-Kheima catchment in Egypt provides a powerful tool for untangling all various connections and feedbacks between atmospheric inputs, vegetation, soil, and hydrology within the system. The budgets of heavy metals in smaller catchment have proved to be useful for the identification of ecological effects of different anthropogenically-derived pollutants, and for documenting the effects of emission reductions. The mechanism of the mass balance as estimated in the studied catchment is given herein by the sum of inputs of toxic heavy metals minus the sum of their outputs as described by the mass balance equation. The results indicate that the components of the environment are damaged by industrial and agricultural practices. Soils lose their fertility and water deteriorates due to pollution.
National geochemical databases served as the main source of data for complication of environmental risk assessment maps for individual environments of Shubra El-Kheima area, including soils and waters. Data indicated great variation in the concentration of heavy metals depending on the location and the type of industrial wastes affecting these locations. From environmental geochemical mapping, the southeast and central parts of Shubra El-Kheima are noted for their extensive contamination of industrial activities causing high accumulation of some toxic heavy metals such as Pb, Cd, and Zn.
