Behiry, E.M.K.; Khafagi, H.A. and Wafaa A. Hafez( 2010). Effect of pollution with industrial wastes of iron and steel company at helwan city on soil and irrigation waterEgypt . J. of Appl. Sci., 25 (10A) 2010 713-730
Abstract: The main objective of this study was concentrated in monitoring the harmful impacts of industrial liquid wastes released from the industrial activity of iron and steel company at Helwan Governorate, Egypt, on some soil physico-chemical properties of the irrigated agricultural areas. The discharge of this factory is directly pumped through an outlet into an adjacent irrigation canal (El-Khashab). Such polluted effluent chemical-wastes that discharged from the performed industrial activity are not only directly contaminated the neighbourhood irrigation water but also indirectly contaminated the irrigated agriculture land. To achieve this target, samples of either irrigation water or irrigated agriculture lands were taken at distances 500, 1000 and 2000 m from the main pollution source, comparing with River Nile water, for monitoring the chemical changes in irrigation water as well as soil physico-chemical properties of irrigated agriculture land.
The chemical analytical data of the available irrigation water source along the different studied distances within the irrigation canal of EL-Khashab, revealed that the released liquid-wastes of the industrial activity were negatively affected irrigation water quality, where its chemical characteristics as represented by the values of water pH, ECiw, soluble ions (especially Na+, and Cl-) and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), which showed a pronounced tendency to increase. That was true, since the suitability criteria of irrigation water resources showed that the studied irrigation water samples could be categorized into three classes, i.e., forth class (C4S2, water salinity of ECiw= 3.60 dS m-1 and sodicity of SAR= 11.07), third class (C3S1, ECiw=1.59 dS m-1 and SAR=6.01) and first class (C1S1, ECiw=0.69 dS m-1 and SAR= 1.68) for the water samples that were taken at distances of 500, 1000 and 2000 m from the main pollution source, respectively. Such chemical irrigation water criteria were also associated with a parallel decrease in soil chemical properties, i.e., cation exchange capacity (CEC) while increased pH, ECe and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) as well as soil physical ones, i.e., slowly drinable pores, fine capillary pores, bulk density, penetration resistance and saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks). The reverse was true for both of total porosity, quickly drinable pores and water holding pores, which pronouncedly decreased.
Keywords: (Industrial liquid wastes, industrial activity, contaminated irrigation water, irrigated agriculture land, degradation of water , soil properties.)
