Episodes 2023; 46(4): 575-589
Published online December 1, 2023
https://doi.org/10.18814/epiiugs/2023/023009
Copyright © International Union of Geological Sciences.
Shaymaa Rizk, Bosy Elhaddad*
Geology Dept. Faculty of Science, Sohag University, 82524 Sohag, Egypt
Correspondence to:*E-mail: bosy_abdelaziz@science.sohag.edu.eg
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Wastewater treatment sites are considered very hazardous sources of soil pollution. This research was conducted to assess the environmental impact of the sewage water treatment plant (West Girga) in Sohag governorate by monitoring the continuous extent of sewage water leakage and heavy metals mobility in the soil and their impact on the groundwater. The detailed visual interpretation of the different remote sensing data for the last 14 years showed that the polluted area increased by approximately 88%. Also, different image analysis methods were successful in differentiating between healthy unpolluted vegetation and unhealthy polluted vegetation. Applying total concentration analysis and the sequential speciation extraction method confirmed these results. The total metal values (Zn, Co, Ni, Cu, Cr, Pb, and Cd) were determined in fine fractions. According to speciation, Cd, Zn, Pb, Cu, and Co are highly mobile metals in the study area. These results confirmed the occurrence of leaking sewage water into the soil in the study area. These results proved that coupling remote sensing and geochemical studies is a successful method for monitoring the spatial distribution of heavy metal pollution.
Article as PDF | Print this Article |
Export to Citation | E-mail alert |