Bioassessment of Cement Dust Pollution and its Radiation in Al-Ahsa Oasis in the Eastern Province of Kingdom Saudi Arabia
Bioassessment of Cement Dust Pollution and its Radiation in Al-Ahsa Oasis in the Eastern Province of Kingdom Saudi Arabia
Zeinab A. El-Moaty1,2*, Hoda Ahmed1,3, Wafaa Sorour4,5 and Tarfa H. Alsheddi6
ABSTRACT
The objective of this study was to quantify the concentration of heavy metals (Mg, Cu, Pb, Fe, Zn, Cd, and Ni), in the soil, plant (Zygophyllum decumben) and ground beetles (Anthia duodecimguttata) at two sampling sites. The selected sites located in the Eastern region, Saudi Arabia. The first site was around to the cement factory, in Al-Ahsa (cement site). While the second one was at 15 Km away (reference site). The obtained results showed that there were no differences in the heavy metals (MHs) concentration in soil collected from the two sites (p>0.05), except Fe that its concentration was significantly higher in the cement site. In addition, six mean differences of MHs out of seven were proven highly significant in plants and insects collected from the cement site. Mg level was the same in plants and insects collected from the two inspected sites. The concentrations of different MHs were higher in beetles than soil and plant. Only, the concentration of Zn in plant (163.59 µg/g) was higher than that recorded in soil (1.67 µg/g) and insect (80.99 µg/g). The concentration of Mg, Cu, Fe, Pb, Cd and Ni increased and accumulated by transferring from soil to plant to beetle whereas the accumulation of Zn decreased by transferring from plant to insect. The concentration of U238, Th232 and K40 (Bq/kg) in the soil collected from the cement site is significantly higher than that recorded in the soil collected from the reference site. Except Cs137 that showed insignificant difference between the two studied sites. The concentrations of all recorded HMs and radioactivity level in the soil collected from the cement site were less than the acceptable limit.
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