The effect of irrigation on cadmium, uranium, and phosphorus contents in agricultural soils

Abstract

Cadmium (Cd) is a toxic metal which has accumulated in New Zealand agricultural soils due to phosphate fertilizer application. Understanding the contribution of plant uptake or leaching of Cd to observed Cd losses from soil is important. The concentration and distribution of Cd in irrigated and unirrigated soils with the same phosphate fertilizer history were investigated. Twenty-two pairs of soil samples from four depths (0-0.1, 0.1-0.2, 0.2-0.3 and 0.3-0.4 m) were taken from irrigated and unirrigated areas in the same field on dairy farms in three regions of New Zealand. The mean concentration of Cd at depths of 0-0.1 m and 0.1-0.2 m, as well as the cumulative masses of Cd (0-0.2, 0-0.3 and 0-0.4 m) in unirrigated soils were significantly higher (P < 0.05) than in irrigated soils. The concentration of phosphorus (P) at all depths (except for 0.2-0.3 m), as well as the cumulative mass of P in all depths of unirrigated soils, was also significantly higher (P < 0.05) than irrigated soils. However, no significant difference was detected in the concentrations of uranium (U) between irrigated and unirrigated soils. Irrigation induced a ∼7% Cd loss from topsoil (0-0.1 m), with the average rate of Cd loss from the top 0.1 m (due to irrigation) being 2.3 g ha −1 yr −1 . This study therefore confirms that irrigation can enhance Cd mobilization, however Cd is mainly adsorbed to the surface soil.

Farmer Awareness to the Dangers of Heavy Metal Cadmium (Cd) Pollution due to Over-Fertilization in Sragen Regency Central Java

“…The presence of cadmium metal which is toxic in the environment certainly will have a negative impact on living things around it (Fauzi et al, 2015;Zhu et al, 2017). Cd contamination into agricultural land comes from three sources, namely from the air (pollution), irrigation and Phosphate fertilizer (Chen et al, 2007;Roberts, 2014;Cruz-Paredes et al, 2017;Salmanzadeh et al, 2017). P fertilization can add Cd metal content to agricultural land because the raw material for making P fertilizer comes from phosphate rock which naturally contains Cd metal (Roberts, 2014;Bigalke et al, 2016).…”

“…Most of the Cd metal moves from the soil to crop through harvesting and washing Cd to deeper soil layers (Ji et al, 2012;Bigalke et al, 2016). Irrigation can increase the mobilization of Cd metal, especially Cd metal which is adsorbed on the ground (Salmanzadeh et al, 2017).…”

Evaluation of the Effects of Cadmium in Soil on the LC50 of Soil Bacteria and Fungi for Environmental Monitoring

“…Further, it can be associated with mining and smelting (Zhou et al, 2018). Accumulation of cadmium in the environment can also be attributed to application of phosphate fertilizers in farms (Schipper et al, 2011;Smolders and Mertens, 2013;Reiser et al, 2014;Salmanzadeh et al, 2016;Salmanzadeh et al, 2017) which has extensively been used in agricultural production. As Cd is higher in agricultural areas, this can be the modest explanation of the findings in the study areas.…”

The interpolation of cadmium in soils of an urbanized territory of the steppe Dnieper region using geoinformation modeling methods

“…Buffer ability of soils and resistance of tree plantations to industrial pollution are limited (Yang et al, 1995;Wyszkowska et al, 2013;Pizzol et al, 2014). As a result of anthropogenic changes, soil can become a toxic environment for growth and development of plants, a source of additional pollution of urban ecosystem (Salmanzadeh et al, 2017;Raiesi et al, 2018).…”