Impact of land use on soil properties, nutrient status and heavy metals in soils of district Rohtak
Loading...
Date
2018
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
CCSHAU
Abstract
In order to study the effect of agriculture, horticulture and industrial land use on soil properties, nutrient
status and heavy metals content in soils of Rohtak district. Soil (n=30), groundwater (n=20) and plant
(n=10) samples were randomly collected from agriculture, horticulture and industrial land use. One
profile sample (i.e. from 0-15 cm, 15-30 cm, 30-60 cm and 60-90 cm depth) was also separately
collected from each of these land use. The pH of soils is neutral to alkaline in nature. The EC, OC and
CaCO3 content was found higher in profile samples of industrial land use. The content of macronutrient
(N, P, K and S) in profile samples was found higher under industrial land use and the content these
elements decreases with increase in soil depth. The content of micronutrients (Zn, Fe, Mn and Cd) and
heavy metals (Co, Cd, Pb and Cr) was also found higher in industrial land use and decreasing trend of
micronutrients with soil depth was observed for Zn, Fe, Mn and Cd. The pH, EC and OC content of the
surface soil samples varies from 7.20- 8.70, 0.01- 2.90 dSm-1 and 0.02- 0.90 % in samples collected
from agriculture, horticulture and collected from industrial land use, respectively. The average
concentration N, P and K was found in order: industrial land use > horticulture land use > agriculture
land use. The average content of Zn, Fe, Mn, and Ni was found higher under industrial land use and
low in horticulture whereas, the content of Ni was found similar in agriculture as well horticulture land
use. The average content of heavy metals like Co, Cd, Pb and Cr was also found higher under the
industrial land use. Analysis of groundwater samples collected from these different land uses shows
that the average of EC, CO3
2-, Cl-, SO4
2-, B, Ca2+ and Mg2+ was found higher in samples from industrial
land use than rest of the two land uses. In groundwater samples, the mean content of Zn, Cu, Fe, Mn,
Ni (micronutrients) and Pb, Cr, Co, Cd (heavy metals) was found higher for industrial land use. The
average content of P, K and S was found higher under industrial land use but N content was found
higher in plant samples from horticulture land use.