Abstract
Immense amount of wastewater is used for irrigation of vegetables and crops in order to cope with water scarcity issues in Pakistan. Wastewater is highly contaminated due to the disposal of untreated industrial wastewater into the main drains. Therefore, crops and vegetables have concentrations of heavy metals and other contaminants. The study was conducted at Chokera wastewater treatment plant in district Faisalabad, where wastewater is used for irrigation of vegetables. Samples of wastewater were collected from the drain during different time interval to find out variations in wastewater characteristics. Samples of irrigation wastewater and cultivated vegetables by wastewater were collected and investigated to check the Arsenic concentrations in vegetables. Soil samples and groundwater samples from the nearby vicinity have been taken so as to investigate the impact of wastewater characteristics which is being used for irrigation purposes. Furthermore, health risk assessment due to arsenic was conducted because consumption of wastewater irrigated vegetables. Results of selected vegetables shown that the edible portions of vegetables had average concentrations of Ni, Pb, Cd and Cr as 30.14, 27.49, 27.67 and 7.56 mg kg-1, respectively. All the water samples were alkaline. The mean concentrations of Ni, Pb, Cd and Cr in leaves samples were 30.78, 15.58, 12.37 and 3.74 mg kg-1, respectively. Waste water without treatment is not fit for irrigation to the vegetables.
Highlights
The use of wastewater for irrigation give good crop yields, as it consists of lots of good organic and inorganic elements for growth and development of crops (Mitra and Gupta, 1999)
By using Daily Intake of Metals (DIM) and reference oral dose we find the health risk index
Copper are almost close to the safe limit, zinc and chromium are in the safe limit
Summary
The use of wastewater for irrigation give good crop yields, as it consists of lots of good organic and inorganic elements for growth and development of crops (Mitra and Gupta, 1999). Some of the heavy metals are beneficial for proper plant growth, but the others are not so good after the accumulation in soil that can transfer to the food chain and caused adverse effects (Ghafoor et al, 1995; Malla et al, 2007). Elements such as Fe, Mn, Co, Cu and Ni are essential and their permissible limits are very low but in wastewater are present in concentrations above permissible limits and show their toxic effects on the biological system. Cadmium shows many effects on seedling length and dry weight (Raza et al, 2013), reduces the activity of photosystem causes structural change in chloroplasts and reduces photosynthesis availability carbon dioxide, decreased stomatal conductance, reducing total lipids, glycolipids and neutral lipids interfere with the permeability of the membrane and reduces respiration in leaves (Agarwal, 2002)
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