Pollutants in Air And Heavy Metals in Street Dust of Some Selected Locations in Zaria.
Abstract
Carbon-monoxide (CO), Hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and sulphurdioxide (SO2) concentrations were determined in the morning, afternoon and evening hours at the Sabon-Gari Market, Zaria and Aliyu Mustapha Social Centre, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, using an automatic gas sampling system.
The concentrations of these gases have been attributed to the burning of solid and fossil fuels and bacterial decomposition of organic matter from dump sites and gutters.
The distribution of the gaseous pollutants showed either a platykurtic (flat) or leptokurtic (peaked) distribution. Analysis of variance using Friedman test showed no significant difference at (P<0.05) within the study sites.
Hierarchical cluster analysis carried out showed more agglomeration between site B and D during the morning and afternoon hours respectively and between site A and D for the evening hour for all the Sites at location1
while at location 2, their is more agglomeration between site A and C during the morning hour and site A and B for afternoon and evening hours respectively.
The concentration of Cd, Cr, Fe, Ni and Pb were determined in the street dust of the Sabon – Gari market Zaria using AAS.
The concentration of these metals are within the range of 0.40 – 1.45μgg-1, 16.92 – 33.82μgg-1, 240 – 315.61μgg-1, 3.05 – 6.04 μgg-1 and 25.79 –121.35μgg-1 respectively.
Introduction
1.1 Background of Study
In the earlier days, the impact of man’s activity on the earth’s environment was rather little and nature could resist and compensate for it.
At the end of the 19th century, environmental problems arose due to the growing cities and industrialization.
Pollution of air and water channels in the bigger cities became severe. In the 20th century, the increase in intensity of agricultural and cattle rearing, changes and growth in industrial processing and in the nature of compounds used from natural and synthetic compounds made environmental problems even greater. Nature could no longer resist and compensate for them.
Pollution is the undesirable changes in the physical, chemical or biological characteristics of air, water or land that can harmfully affect the health, survival or activities of human or other living organism (Albert, 1992).
It is the existence of substances in the environment that prevents the functioning of natural processes producing undesirable environmental and health effects due to their chemical composition or quality.
The substances that cause pollution are referred to as pollutants, therefore pollutants can be defined as substance not normally present or that are present in large concentration than normal with harmful effects especially on living organism.
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