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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.

Environmental impact of sewage water disposable sites using remote sensing and geochemical studies in West Girga, Sohag, Egypt

Shaymaa Rizk, Bosy Elhaddad*

Geology Dept. Faculty of Science, Sohag University, 82524 Sohag, Egypt

Correspondence to:*E-mail: bosy_abdelaziz@science.sohag.edu.eg

Received: January 20, 2023; Revised: March 31, 2023; Accepted: March 31, 2023

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.

Abstract

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.