Assessment of Pollution Load and Statistical Analysis of Heavy Metals (Pb,V,Zn and Ni) in Soils Surrounding the Shahid Rajaei Power Plant

Subject Areas : soil pollution

ALI GOUDARZVANDCHEGINI ¹ , Naser Ebadati ² , Behnoush Khoshmanesh Zadeh ³

1 - Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, West Tehran branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran. *(Corresponding Author)
2 - Department of Geology, Eslamshahr branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
3 - Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, West Tehran branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Received: 2024-05-01 Accepted : 2025-01-29 Published : 2025-01-20

Keywords: heavy metals, Shahid Rajaei power plant, pollution load, geostatistical indicators,

Abstract :

Background and Objective: soil contamination with heavy metals is a growing problem that is important due to their indestructibility and adverse physiological effects on living organisms and humans, even in low concentrations. This research was conducted with the aim of investigating and monitoring soil contamination around Shahid Rajaei power plant with lead, vanadium, zinc and nickel heavy metals.

Material and Methodology: After identifying the characteristics of the lands and soils around the power plant with a radius of 5 km, 63 soil samples were taken from the depth of 0 to 20 cm and analyzed using the inductively coupled plasma-spectrometry (ICP-OES) method. Then, pollution load indices were calculated and using geostatistical methods, the trend of changes in the concentration of heavy metals in the soil was analyzed.

Findings: The results showed that vanadium had the highest relative distribution index (V > Zn > Ni > Pb). Also, based on the correlation coefficient and the time series graph, the change trend of nickel compared to vanadium, lead and zinc was upward, which indicates the increase in the pollution load and the greater ecological risk of this element. Examination in terms of the index of accumulation of nickel (0.93), zinc (-0.19), vanadium (-1.01), lead (-1.03), which show the average pollution load.

Discussion and conclusion: In general, the pollution load factor (PLI) for lead, vanadium, zinc, and nickel was obtained as 1.65, 1.63, 1.61, and 1.50, respectively, which showed that the soils of the studied area are high in these metals. They are in the medium pollution category. However, the comparison of these results with the particles coming out of the power plant chimney shows the concentration and enrichment of the soil with these metals due to the power plant activity. Therefore, the need to apply measures and environmental management and control the type of power plant fuel in order to reduce soil pollution with heavy metals is inevitable.

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