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Survey of the Levels of some Heavy Metals in Roadside Dusts along Katima Mulilo Urban Road Construction, Namibia

Received: 4 January 2014    Accepted:     Published: 20 February 2014
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Abstract

Roadside dusts pollutions with heavy metals continue to attract attention as more anthropogenic activities including urban road construction impacted on the natural metal loads of the environment. This study employed analytical procedures to investigate the concentrations of arsenic, lead, chromium, cadmium, cobalt, copper, nickel, manganese, vanadium, iron and tin in the roadside dusts along Katima Mulilo urban road construction. Replicate dusts samples collected from three different areas of the road and a quiet residential area (control) were digested by EPA method 3050B followed by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrophotometer (ICP: Perkin Elmer Optima 7000 DV) analysis. The results of levels of the heavy metals revealed that iron recorded the highest concentration of 7491.13±0.15 mg/kg along the road construction while tin recorded the lowest value (0.27±0.13 mg/kg). Similar trend was observed at the control area located 1.5 km away from the road: iron recorded the highest concentration of 2327.17±0.12 mg/kg while tin recorded the lowest concentration (0.20±0.10 mg/kg). The analysis of variance of the heavy metal concentrations across the sample locations were statistically significant (p > 0.05). However, the levels of the heavy metals recorded cross the sampling areas were less than their soil maximum permissible concentrations. There are strong positive inter-elemental correlations between the sampling areas while result of the soil enrichment factors showed significant enrichment; which are related to common and input from anthropogenically induced sources respectively. The results of single element pollution indexes of the heavy metals showed low contaminations but elevated levels of arsenic and cadmium in all the sampling areas. These could become a potential source of health concern following environmental accumulation and non-biodegradation of the heavy metals. Thus, it is recommended among others that an environmental impact assessment should be carried out on gravel sites to be used in urban road construction to limit heavy metal contaminations of roadside dusts following their usage.

Published in American Journal of Environmental Protection (Volume 3, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.ajep.20140301.13
Page(s) 19-27
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Urban Road Construction, Heavy Metals, Roadside Dusts, Pollution

References
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  • APA Style

    J. Abah, P. Mashebe, S. A. Onjefu. (2014). Survey of the Levels of some Heavy Metals in Roadside Dusts along Katima Mulilo Urban Road Construction, Namibia. American Journal of Environmental Protection, 3(1), 19-27. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajep.20140301.13

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    ACS Style

    J. Abah; P. Mashebe; S. A. Onjefu. Survey of the Levels of some Heavy Metals in Roadside Dusts along Katima Mulilo Urban Road Construction, Namibia. Am. J. Environ. Prot. 2014, 3(1), 19-27. doi: 10.11648/j.ajep.20140301.13

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    AMA Style

    J. Abah, P. Mashebe, S. A. Onjefu. Survey of the Levels of some Heavy Metals in Roadside Dusts along Katima Mulilo Urban Road Construction, Namibia. Am J Environ Prot. 2014;3(1):19-27. doi: 10.11648/j.ajep.20140301.13

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ajep.20140301.13,
      author = {J. Abah and P. Mashebe and S. A. Onjefu},
      title = {Survey of the Levels of some Heavy Metals in Roadside Dusts along Katima Mulilo Urban Road Construction, Namibia},
      journal = {American Journal of Environmental Protection},
      volume = {3},
      number = {1},
      pages = {19-27},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ajep.20140301.13},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajep.20140301.13},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ajep.20140301.13},
      abstract = {Roadside dusts pollutions with heavy metals continue to attract attention as more anthropogenic activities including urban road construction impacted on the natural metal loads of the environment. This study employed analytical procedures to investigate the concentrations of arsenic, lead, chromium, cadmium, cobalt, copper, nickel, manganese, vanadium, iron and tin in the roadside dusts along Katima Mulilo urban road construction. Replicate dusts samples collected from three different areas of the road and a quiet residential area (control) were digested by EPA method 3050B followed by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrophotometer (ICP: Perkin Elmer Optima 7000 DV) analysis. The results of levels of the heavy metals revealed that iron recorded the highest concentration of 7491.13±0.15 mg/kg along the road construction while tin recorded the lowest value (0.27±0.13 mg/kg). Similar trend was observed at the control area located 1.5 km away from the road: iron recorded the highest concentration of 2327.17±0.12 mg/kg while tin recorded the lowest concentration (0.20±0.10 mg/kg). The analysis of variance of the heavy metal concentrations across the sample locations were statistically significant (p > 0.05). However, the levels of the heavy metals recorded cross the sampling areas were less than their soil maximum permissible concentrations. There are strong positive inter-elemental correlations between the sampling areas while result of the soil enrichment factors showed significant enrichment; which are related to common and input from anthropogenically induced sources respectively. The results of single element pollution indexes of the heavy metals showed low contaminations but elevated levels of arsenic and cadmium in all the sampling areas. These could become a potential source of health concern following environmental accumulation and non-biodegradation of the heavy metals. Thus, it is recommended among others that an environmental impact assessment should be carried out on gravel sites to be used in urban road construction to limit heavy metal contaminations of roadside dusts following their usage.},
     year = {2014}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Survey of the Levels of some Heavy Metals in Roadside Dusts along Katima Mulilo Urban Road Construction, Namibia
    AU  - J. Abah
    AU  - P. Mashebe
    AU  - S. A. Onjefu
    Y1  - 2014/02/20
    PY  - 2014
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajep.20140301.13
    DO  - 10.11648/j.ajep.20140301.13
    T2  - American Journal of Environmental Protection
    JF  - American Journal of Environmental Protection
    JO  - American Journal of Environmental Protection
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    EP  - 27
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2328-5699
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajep.20140301.13
    AB  - Roadside dusts pollutions with heavy metals continue to attract attention as more anthropogenic activities including urban road construction impacted on the natural metal loads of the environment. This study employed analytical procedures to investigate the concentrations of arsenic, lead, chromium, cadmium, cobalt, copper, nickel, manganese, vanadium, iron and tin in the roadside dusts along Katima Mulilo urban road construction. Replicate dusts samples collected from three different areas of the road and a quiet residential area (control) were digested by EPA method 3050B followed by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrophotometer (ICP: Perkin Elmer Optima 7000 DV) analysis. The results of levels of the heavy metals revealed that iron recorded the highest concentration of 7491.13±0.15 mg/kg along the road construction while tin recorded the lowest value (0.27±0.13 mg/kg). Similar trend was observed at the control area located 1.5 km away from the road: iron recorded the highest concentration of 2327.17±0.12 mg/kg while tin recorded the lowest concentration (0.20±0.10 mg/kg). The analysis of variance of the heavy metal concentrations across the sample locations were statistically significant (p > 0.05). However, the levels of the heavy metals recorded cross the sampling areas were less than their soil maximum permissible concentrations. There are strong positive inter-elemental correlations between the sampling areas while result of the soil enrichment factors showed significant enrichment; which are related to common and input from anthropogenically induced sources respectively. The results of single element pollution indexes of the heavy metals showed low contaminations but elevated levels of arsenic and cadmium in all the sampling areas. These could become a potential source of health concern following environmental accumulation and non-biodegradation of the heavy metals. Thus, it is recommended among others that an environmental impact assessment should be carried out on gravel sites to be used in urban road construction to limit heavy metal contaminations of roadside dusts following their usage.
    VL  - 3
    IS  - 1
    ER  - 

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Author Information
  • Department of Mathematics, Science and Sport Education, Katima Mulilo Campus, Private Bag, 1096, University of Namibia

  • Department of Mathematics, Science and Sport Education, Katima Mulilo Campus, Private Bag, 1096, University of Namibia

  • Department of Natural Sciences, Namibia University of Science and Technology, Private Bag, 13388, Windhoek, Namibia

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