Spatial Distribution of Heavy Metals in the Soil of Different Area at Right Bank in Mosul City, Northern Iraq, Part 1

Abstract

The present study focuses on how to assess the reality of soil pollution by heavy elements on the right bank of Mosul City after 2017. Seventy samples are collected from the right-bank soils depending on the random system. Chemical analysis is conducted using the ICP-MS technique to determine the concentrations of the heavy elements (As, Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb, Zn) in these samples, and then to calculate the pollution factors: Geoaccumulation Index, Enrichment Factor, and Contamination Factor. The average crust is adopted for the comparison and definition of the permissible limits for calculating the pollution factors. The results of the chemical analysis show that the concentrations of the elements (As, Cd, Cr, Ni, Pb, Zn) are higher than the average crust by a ratio of 100%, 85.3%, 44.29%, 100%, 37.14%, 24.28% respectively, which have an effect on the results of the pollution factors, and this refers to an addition of heavy elements to soil of the right bank of Mosul City as a result of human activity (anthropogenic). These activities are the military operations and the use of different types of weapons such as bombs, missiles, ammunition and the remnants thereof, which contain many heavy metals as well as fumes and gases emitted from burning waste, vehicle exhaust, electricity generators, liquid waste in urban and industrial areas, sewage water, fertilizers and pesticides. To know the role of physicochemical characteristics and their contribution to the distribution of heavy elements in the soil, pH and electrical conductivity are measured and the organic matter content is determined. The results show a rate of 7.8, 27.8, and 4.6, respectively.