TITLE:
Assessing Water and Soil Pollution Due to Uttara EPZ, Nilphamari, Bangladesh
AUTHORS:
Md. Emdadul Haque, Moury Shermin, Arifa Yasmin Mukta
KEYWORDS:
UEPZ, Environment, Contamination, Mitigation, Impact, Pollution
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.7 No.7,
July
26,
2019
ABSTRACT: The Uttara Export Processing
Zone (UEPZ) is being the important industrial belt of the northern region. It
is an important issue to find out the environmental impact of UEPZ. Water is
the most important source of domestic, irrigation and industrial purpose in
both rural and urban regions. The present study was carried out to find out the
water and soil quality of UEPZ. Five heavy metals were selected (Fe, Cu, Mn, Pb, Cr) to assess water quality of UEPZ and two indices such as heavy
metal pollution index (HPI) and contamination index (Cd) were
selected to evaluate the impact on water. The results showed that the
concentrations of heavy metals in water samples were within the permissible
limits of WHO drinking water quality. HPI of water samples in three sites was 20.57 which was lower than 100 the critical value for drinking water.
Both results show the region is moderately or slightly
polluted. Pollution risks of heavy metal in the soil were evaluated by method
of geological acumination index (Igeo) and Pollution load index (PLI)
for seven soil samples. The geological evaluation of the cumulative index
results showed that the contamination degree of 4 heavy metals follows the sequence of Mn > Zn > Fe > Cu. Then the results of PLI of seven soil sample are 1.474 > 1.398 > 1.372 > 1.308 > 1.302 > 1.290 > 1.289. Both results show the soil sample area were unpolluted to
moderately polluted. Finally, an overall impact of UEPZs environment is also discussed in this paper.