TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of potentially contaminated river water on agricultural irrigated soils in an equatorial climate
AU - Trujillo-González, Juan Manuel
AU - Mahecha-Pulido, Juan D.
AU - Torres-Mora, Marco Aurelio
AU - Brevik, Eric C.
AU - Keesstra, Saskia D.
AU - Jiménez-Ballesta, Raimundo
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Globally, it is estimated that 20 million hectares of arable land are irrigated with water that contains residual contributions from domestic liquids. This potentially poses risks to public health and ecosystems, especially due to heavy metals, which are considered dangerous because of their potential toxicity and persistence in the environment. The Villavicencio region (Colombia) is an equatorial area where rainfall (near 3000 mm/year) and temperature (average 25.6 °C) are high. Soil processes in tropical conditions are fast and react quickly to changing conditions. Soil properties from agricultural fields irrigated with river water polluted by a variety of sources were analysed and compared to non-irrigated control soils. In this study, no physico-chemical alterations were found that gave evidence of a change due to the constant use of river water that contained wastes. This fact may be associated with the climatic factors (temperature and precipitation), which contribute to fast degradation of organic matter and nutrient and contaminants (such as heavy metals) leaching, or to dilution of wastes by the river.
AB - Globally, it is estimated that 20 million hectares of arable land are irrigated with water that contains residual contributions from domestic liquids. This potentially poses risks to public health and ecosystems, especially due to heavy metals, which are considered dangerous because of their potential toxicity and persistence in the environment. The Villavicencio region (Colombia) is an equatorial area where rainfall (near 3000 mm/year) and temperature (average 25.6 °C) are high. Soil processes in tropical conditions are fast and react quickly to changing conditions. Soil properties from agricultural fields irrigated with river water polluted by a variety of sources were analysed and compared to non-irrigated control soils. In this study, no physico-chemical alterations were found that gave evidence of a change due to the constant use of river water that contained wastes. This fact may be associated with the climatic factors (temperature and precipitation), which contribute to fast degradation of organic matter and nutrient and contaminants (such as heavy metals) leaching, or to dilution of wastes by the river.
KW - Agricultural land use
KW - Equatorial area
KW - Trace elements
KW - Wastewater irrigation
U2 - 10.3390/agriculture7070052
DO - 10.3390/agriculture7070052
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85021971583
SN - 2077-0472
VL - 7
JO - Agriculture
JF - Agriculture
IS - 7
M1 - 52
ER -