Studies on concentrations of heavy metals in Agricultural Soils around NTPC Simhadri Super Thermal Power Plant Coal Fired Visakhapatnam Andhrapradesh India

Abstract

ABSTRACT newlineSoil is one of the most important resources of the Nature and is considered as a nonrenewable newline newlineresource, because it takes between 100 and 600 years to grow an inch of newlinetopsoil, the most productive soil cover. Soil is not only important for cultivation and newlineplanting crops but, also useful for living organisms. Soil pollution is defined as the newlinesurvival of toxic materials (natural or anthropogenic) in soil, in an adequate newlineconcentration to cause risk to human health and/or the ecosystem. In recent decades, soil newlinepollution has occurred due to numerous heavy metals because of industrialization, newlineurbanization, household operations and is more in case of developing countries because newlineof rapid industrialization without proper planning (Ahmed et al., 2015). The untreated newlinewaste and discharges from these industries are foremost reason for environmental newlinedamage. Heavy metal contamination refers to the deposition of toxic heavy metals in the newlinesoil caused by anthropogenic activities. Heavy metals in the soil include some major newlinemetals of biological toxicity, such as Mercury (Hg), Cadmium (Cd), Lead (Pb), newlineChromium (Cr), Arsenic (As), Zinc (Zn), Copper (Cu), Nickel (Ni), Tin (Sn), Vanadium newline(V) and so on. Heavy metals are non-biodegradable, carcinogenic, mutagenic and newlineaccumulate at every trophic level through the food chain (Rani and Kaushik, 2014). newlineExcessive amounts of heavy metals in agricultural soils lead to loss of crop quality and newlineharmfully affect the health of consumers (Rajindiran et al., 2015). The present study newlineentitled Studies on Concentrations of Heavy Metals in Agricultural Soils around newlineNTPC-Simhadri Super Thermal Power Plant (Coal fired), Visakhapatnam, Andhra newlinePradesh, India was undertaken to identify the selected heavy metal concentrations on newlinethe topsoils near NTPC and to assess the level of soil contamination due to industrial newlineeffluents and its activities. The study concludes that the heavy metals in the agricultural newlinesoils show low concentrations with less pollution as of now but, the changes in newlineenvironmental c