In the process of electrolytic aluminium production, a large amount of fluoride is deposited into the surrounding environment. The growth of crops within these areas creates a state of high stress in plants that can easily result in excessive fluorine enrichment in agricultural products, which in turn poses a health threat to humans via the food chain. However, it is not clear what the degree of influence is or how long the impacts of fluorides in soil and agricultural products last for. In this study, 122 vegetable species and 36 surface soil samples were collected within 10 km of an aluminium plant that had been abandoned for five years. The single factor index and the geological accumulation index methods were used to evaluate the degree of fluorine pollution in vegetables and soil within the study area. The hazard index and the hazard quotient were used to assess vegetable and soil health risks, respectively. The results showed that the fluorine content of 89.26% of agricultural products exceeded the Chinese Maximum Levels of Contaminants in Foods and was higher than in other regions, indicating that the emissions of fluoride from the aluminium plant still had a significant effect on fluorine accumulation in vegetables. The total fluorine (Ft) content in the surrounding surface soil (average value 1328.32 mg kg−1) was similar to the soil fluorine background in the nearby uncontaminated settlement area, but the soil water-soluble fluorine (Fw) was very high, indicating that the fluorine pollutants emitted from the aluminium plant had gradually been diluted by the high background of the original soil, but the solubility of these pollutants was higher (average 15.00 mg kg−1) and would continue to threaten the safety of agricultural products in this region. Within 1 km of the abandoned aluminium plant, the degree of fluorine enrichment in vegetables, and Ft and Fw in soil were significantly higher than other ranges, indicating that this was the main fluoride deposit area. Based on the HI and HQ evaluation, vegetables and ground dust around the aluminium plant still had high non-carcinogenic risks for children, even though it has been abandoned for more than five years.

Fluorine enrichment of vegetables and soil around an abandoned aluminium plant and its risk to human health

Biennial Report (2006-2008) of AICRP on Management of Salt Affected Soils and Use of Saline Water in Agriculture

The important issue relating to water resources is sea water intrusion (SWI) phenomena. Nowadays, the phenomena has become serious problem in the urban coastal area. Groundwater as main sources for domestic usage cannot be used again because of its salinity.Cilacap as one of urban coastal area also face the problem. In 1977 SWIwas detectedand experienced significant developmentsin 1996,This research was conducted to: (1) analyze agroundwater vulnerability to the SWI; (2) determine adistance and adepth theinterface; and (3) analyze relationship of the groundwater vulnerability to the interface depth.It was performed an analysis of the groundwater vulnerability to the SWI using the method of GALDIT, whereas the distance and depth of the interface was determined using the method of DupuitGhyben-Herzberg. The linkage analysis of the groundwater vulnerability to the depth of the actual interface was conducted by quantitative descriptively.The results showed that the distance from the shoreline was the most determined factor of the groundwater vulnerability to the SWI, the closer to the shoreline the more swallow the depth of the interface.  It existed the relevance between the vulnerability level of groundwater to the SWI with the depth of actual interface. The regions with low level of vulnerability had deep interface depth, whereas the regions with moderate level of vulnerability had swallow interface depth.  Nevertheless, the SWI has not yet affected the groundwater in people wells because of its depth that was not yet exceeded of 25 m.so that this depth can be used as a reference in digging wells in the research area++

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Groundwater Vulnerability from Sea Water Intrusion in Coastal Area Cilacap, Indonesia

Groundwater quality is an important thing to be determined; because it is commonly used as a source of clean water for domestic, agricultural and industry purposes. Fifty three groundwater samples (seventeen from wells, five from springs and thirty one from boreholes) were sampled for this research work. Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrophotometer (ICP-MS) was used to analyze for the major cations while titration was used for SO4 and HCO3. Cl was analyzed using the Ion Chromatographic Method (IC). From the results obtained, Total dissolved solids (TDS), Electrical conductivity (EC), and Strontium (Sr) classified the groundwater in the study area into three as fresh, brackish and saline water. The concentrations of major ions in all the fresh water and some of the brackish water in the study area met the World Health Organization (WHO) Standard for drinking water while the concentrations of the major ions in the saline water are above the WHO permissible values for drinking water. This indicates that the saline water from the study area are not good for domestic, agriculture and industrial uses. Four types of water are obtained from the groundwater based on Total Hardness (TH) as: 75 mg/l as soft; 75–150 mg/l as moderately hard; 150–300 mg/l as hard; and >300 mg/l as very hard. Both extreme degrees of very soft (<75 mg/l) and very hard (>300 mg/l) are considered as undesirable features in water. About 90% of the groundwater in the study area are suitable for domestic, livestock and irrigation purposes but only about 51% of the groundwater samples can be used by industries without being treated. 
 

Groundwater quality in awe and environs, middle benue trough, nigeria

In major part of arid and semi arid regions, the major irrigation water resources are ground water aquifers, but due to presence of excess salt in these regions, it had adverse effect on crop productivity. Further due to excess exploitation, it decline alarmingly year after year. So far sustaining the agriculture production we have to maintain the ground water quantitatively and qualitatively. One of the options may be recharging this ground water with run off rain water. The program is being initiated in Odara village under Operational Research Project (ORP), R.B.S College, Bichpuri, Agra in 2008. The 8 farmers were selected and about 0.4 hectares area selected for recharge irrigation on each farmer's field. ECiw (ds/m) and SARiw (mmol/l) ½ in the month of June ranged from 10.9 to 15.0 and 12.5-24.0 respectively. The water salinity (ds/m) at 8 recharge tube wells varied from 0.5 to 7.2 at 1 st pre-sowing irrigation, 6.4 to 10.8 at 2 nd

R. P. S. Chauhan

Papers

Recharge of saline water aquifers with rain water and its impact on water quality and crop production.

Boron and fluorine hazards in underground water of semiarid tract of India