Monitoring of Heavy Metal Content in Leafy Vegetables Irrigated with Different Water Sources

Abstract

The present research was conducted to calculate levels of different heavy metals like Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn in leafy vegetables when grown with different water sources. The result showed quite high range of accumulation when the vegetables were irrigated with wastewater. Wastewater irrigated vegetables showed variations (115-377), (12-68), (5.2-16.8), (21-45) mg/kg for iron, manganese, copper and zinc. Highest toxic level of iron and manganese were detected in mint and spinach and carrot showed highest value of copper and zinc. From the present study we can conclude that the vegetables grown from these water resources will lead to heavy metal accumulation in human body i.e for both adult and children if they continuously consume these vegetables. For this regular monitoring of these heavy metals is needed in order to prevent excessive metal accumulation in the body. However the results obtained from the present study shows that the ranges of heavy metal were below the permissible limitsset by WHO/FAO.