Soil assessment for heavy metal contamination and potential ecological risks

Pollution in soil (particularly heavy metal contamination) is a result of industrialization, urbanization, intensified use of fertilisers, insecticides and irrigation water. The quality of agricultural soil in the vicinity of the industry is of wide concern due to associated health risks caused by presence of heavy metals in it. Heavy metals pollution in the soil leads to its poor health, groundwater and food contamination which is hazardous to human health. In the present study, wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence (WDXRF) technique has been used for soil assessment in one of the industrial areas of Himachal Pradesh, India. The XRF results show a larger concentration of some of the heavy metals in different soil samples as compared to the permissible values. The high values of contamination factor especially for titanium (Ti), vanadium (V), chromium (Cr), cobalt (Co) and barium (Ba) show that the contamination in the agricultural soils in the vicinity of the industries is due to their shear negligence. The investigated contamination factor lies in the range; 3.79Cfi<14, 3.29Cfi<17.86, 1.64Cfi<18.96, 2.78Cfi<6.22 and 2.38Cfi<6.30 for Ti, V, Cr, Co and Ba respectively. Moreover, the results indicate that the risk index ranges from moderate potential risk to considerable potential risk.