Assessment of soil quality along river Ng'ombe impacted by battery recycling factory at Ubungo in Dar-es-Salaam
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Date
2023
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Abstract
Urban soils and streams contaminated with heavy metals have grown ubiquitous around the world throughout
the industrialization age, severely reducing the quality and diversity of life. Industrial waste, such as chemicalreleasing
factories, is one of the primary anthropogenic sources of heavy metal contamination in soil and water
bodies. To analyze the impact of industries to heavy metal contamination, the study assessed the soil quality
along the heavy metals polluted river Ng’ombe near the battery recycling plant in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s
commercial city. The research looked at three heavy metals (Cu, Pb, and Zn) in a total of eight samples. Soils
were found contaminated with both metals i.e., Copper, Lead, and Zinc at 4.68, 4.08 mg/L and, 5.79, respectively.
Based on the soil samples taken surrounding the industry, it is possible to establish that the industry
contributes significantly to the contamination in the soil and river Ng’ombe stream. Pb contamination was found
to be fairly equally distributed across the area (2 to 6 mg/kg), as opposed to Zn (0.8 to 17 mg/kg) and Cu (0.04 to
19 mg/kg), which were shown to vary greatly on soil samples obtained around the area. Different pollution
indices including geo-accumulation index, Potential contamination index, Contamination factor, Pollution load index
and Modified degree of contamination were also used to investigate the impact of soil contamination, and all of
them revealed that industrial discharges were an influence. However; study found the levels to be in permissible
limit, but still, it exposes the community to cumulative consequences of metals bioaccumulation.
Description
Full text. Available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envc.2023.100772
Keywords
Heavy metals, Soil contamination, Chemical processing industry
Citation
Kwikima, M. M., & Mhagama, A. M. (2023). Assessment of soil quality along river Ng'ombe impacted by battery recycling factory at Ubungo in Dar-es-Salaam. Environmental Challenges, 13, 100772.