COMPARISON OF THE WATER, SOIL AND PLANT QUALITY FROM PRODUCING AND NON-PRODUCING COMMUNITIES

ABSTRACT

The maintenance of human health and welfare depends in large part on soil, plants, and water. Recent increases in industrialization and other human activities have increased the pollution of soil samples, plant samples, and produced and portable water. The purpose of this study was to identify the presence of certain heavy metals in samples of produced and portable water, soil, and plants that were taken from the University of Benin and XYZ Flow-station's respectively crude oil-contaminated and non-crude oil-contaminated locations. The analysis was conducted using a standard analytical technique and an Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) Analyst 400 model. The amount of heavy metals found in water, plants, and soil samples taken from the XYZ flow-station (an oil field) is marginally higher than that found on the campus of the University of Benin (a non-oil field), while several metals show increases that are fairly notable. The soil samples collected from the XYZ flow-station and the University of Benin campus had somewhat different magnesium concentrations, with the concentration of magnesium found on the University of Benin campus being slightly higher than that found at the XYZ flow-station. Additionally, a comparison of the mean concentration values of portable water samples collected from the University of Benin campus (table 4.3) and effluent water samples collected from the XYZ flow-station (table 4.7) shows that the concentrations of all heavy metals collected from the XYZ flow-station are higher.