Study on the Effects of Sewage Irrigation on Soil

Abstract

The long-term use of sewage to irrigate farmland will increase the content of heavy metals in the soil and cause soil pollution. Heavy metal pollution in soils will restrict the sustainable development of local agriculture and will have a negative impact on the ecological environment. In this paper, the irrigation areas using domestic sewage, mixed sewage and industrial sewage as an irrigation water source for many years have been selected as the research objects, and the content of the heavy metals lead (Pb), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) and cadmium (Cd) in the soil with the depth of 0-20cm, 20-50cm and 50-80cm of three kinds of sewage irrigation areas are assessed using single factor pollution index method and Nemerow comprehensive index method, and the potential ecological risks of heavy metals in the soil are assessed using Hakanson ecological risk index method. The results show that the content of heavy metals Pb, Cu, Zn and Cd in different depths of the three sewage irrigation areas does not exceed the national standard limit, and the heavy metal pollution grade in the soil belongs to the safety grade, indicating that the content of heavy metals in the soil has not reached the alert level. The potential ecological risks of heavy metals in the soil show minor ecological risks judging from single indexes, while Cd shows that the ecological risks are at a strong level. Judging from the comprehensive potential ecological risk index, the potential ecological risks of the heavy metals in the study area is minor in graded, but the heavy metals in the soil of the mixed sewage irrigation area and the industrial sewage irrigation area have a moderate grade of potential ecological risks at the depth of 50-80 cm. Therefore, although the content of the heavy metals in the soil of the three kinds of sewage irrigation areas in the study area is safe, the potential ecological risk of Cd is quite high, which should be paid attention to.