Comparative Study of Heavy Lead Pollution in Roadside Soil and Plants by Railway and Highway at Tangail District in Bangladesh

Arjun Chandra Bhowmick,Md Moustafijur Rahman Khan,Majharul Islam Moim,A S M Saifullah,Nikhil Chandra Bhoumik

doi:10.13189/ujas.2015.030301

Arjun Chandra Bhowmick, Md Moustafijur Rahman Khan + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.13189/ujas.2015.030301

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Abstract

This study explains the effect of heavy Lead pollution in soil and plants along the highway and railway of Tangail district. The metal concentration in soil and plant is decreased with increasing distance from the road of highway and railway. Lead is one of the most toxic elements. It is non-biodegradable and its toxicity does not change with time. Use of leaded gasoline in vehicles and train are known as the major source of lead pollution. Highway and railway of Tangail are two busiest routes of Bangladesh and pollution is rising day by day. To reveal the present situation in soil and plant samples were collected at various distances (0m, 15m, 30m) from Railway and highway roads and analyzed for lead by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometric (AAS) method. The results show that the soil and plant samples along these places are contaminated with lead. The highest lead contents 0.1931 ppm in soil and 0.1358 ppm in plant was found for highway on road at 0m distance. Conversely, the highest lead contents 0.0967 ppm in soil and 0.0652 ppm in plant was found for railway on road at 0m distance. Among two types of major transportation system railway pollution is smaller than highway and hence railway transportation system is environment friendly.

Highlights

Owing to the increasing traffic volume pressures in urban areas, the environments that are closer to the highways are subjecting to pollution from traffic emissions
It is noted from the research that the roadside soil and plants in Tangail district are highly contaminated by heavy lead when compared with the background values of WHO
In addition to that heavy metal contamination for highway sides are higher than the railway sides

Summary

Introduction

Owing to the increasing traffic volume pressures in urban areas, the environments that are closer to the highways are subjecting to pollution from traffic emissions. Heavy metals are naturally present small quantities in soil, contamination comes, from local sources: mostly industry (mainly non-ferrous industries, and power plants and iron, steel and chemical industries), agriculture (irrigation with polluted waters, sewage sludge and fertilizer, especially phosphates, contaminated manure and pesticide containing heavy metals), waste incineration, combustion of fossil fuels and road traffic. Alkyl leads are extremely toxic, volatile, and unstable, and they are human health hazards at their sites of production [10]. These are often used as minor additives to gasoline and various auto-lubricants, and are released during combustion and spillage. Public motor roads affects natural environment to a large extent because automobile act as line sources of heavy metal pollutants [12]. There have been several reports on road side soils pollution [15,16,17,18,19] by heavy metals

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