Application of GIS to model maps of cement dust pollutant concentration on agricultural soil :

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to model spatial variation of heavy metals concentration (Pb, Cr,Ni,Cd,Cu,Zn) produced and released by Tororo Cement industry and also determine the statistical relation between the pollution load and the organic carbonate and Ph. Samples were taken along four compass direction taking the factory as the datum and considered 0 to15cm soil depth . The concentration of the elements was measured by the atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The data was analysed using the ArcGIS 10 software and the Inverse Distance Weight (IDW) method of overweight interpolation technique was used. The pollution was estimated using two indices that is the pollution index and the geo-accumulation index. The results showed for Cr, Cd, Ni, Pd, Cu, Zn to be highly concentrated within the factory with values (299.78,2.99,95.67,243,80.13,297.4) mg/kg respectively. The background or standard values used in this particular research was (100,0.8,35,85,36 and 50) mg/kg (WHO 2002). The pollution and geo-accumulation index of the study area show high concentration of the heavy metals within the villages around the factory and also shows a sweep in pollution towards the southern direction. The descriptive statistics and t-test carried out was to compare the mean of the pollution index and geo-accumulation index. The line graph was also to easily show the effect of the pollution load in the different villages with respect to the factory. The mean values, standard deviation and variance 0f the heavy metals parameters were calculated and the hypothesis of the research basing on the mean values of the heavy metal parameters was determined.