Soil pollution in Vietnam

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Soil pollution in Vietnam
by Hoang Ngan \| 27-04-2022 13:23 0
In recent years, we Vietnamese people have to face many serious problems, one of which is environmental pollution. For people in rural areas who live mainly by farming, pollution has affected their lives, especially soil pollution. The soil environment is inhabited by humans and most terrestrial organisms, and is the foundation for human civil, industrial and cultural constructions. Land is a valuable resource, people use land resources in agricultural production to ensure food supply for people. But with the current rate of population growth, industrial development and urbanization, the arable land area is increasingly shrinking, the quality of the land is increasingly degraded, the average land area per capita decrease. Contaminated soil is caused by the presence of xenobiotic chemicals (manmade products) or by changes in the natural soil environment. It is characterized by industrial activities, agrochemicals, or improper disposal of waste. Common chemicals include: Oil hydrocarbons, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (such as naphthalene and benzo(a)pyrene), solvents, pesticides, lead, and heavy metals. The degree of pollution is correlated with the degree of industrialization and the intensity of chemical use. Soil pollution is considered to be all phenomena that pollute the soil environment by polluting agents. - Alum contamination: Due to alum water moving from another place. Mainly infected with Fe2+, Al3+, SO42-. A decrease in environmental pH causes toxicity to humans in that environment. - Salinization: Due to salt in seawater, tidal water or from salt mines, high osmotic pressure causes physiological drought for plants - Gleyification in the soil produces many toxins for ecology (CH4, N2O). , CO2, H2S. FeS,..). - Industrial waste: Mining, chemical production, plastics, nylon, dyes, heavy metals accumulate on the topsoil, making the soil calloused, bad, degraded and unable to continue farming. - Domestic waste: Garbage and feces discharged into the soil environment such as: garbage including branches, leaves, vegetables, leftovers, rags, bricks, mortar, polymer, nylon bags.... Domestic garbage is usually a mixture. of inorganic and organic substances, high humidity, many bacteria and pathogens. Domestic wastewater flows through the sewers into ditches and can be dumped into the fields, dragging manure and contaminating the soil. - Agricultural waste: Animal feces and urine. - Excessive use of chemical products such as: chemical fertilizers, growth stimulants, pesticides, herbicides, long-lived in the soil, bioaccumulation, and changes in biological balance. - Toxic gases in the air such as: sulfur oxides, nitrogen compounds... accumulate or form acid rain and fall to the ground, polluting the soil. Certain types of harmful smog condensate are also the cause of soil pollution. For example, the land near the chemical factories of phosphorus, fluorine, metallurgy is easy to be polluted because of dust, the fluorine content in phosphorus minerals used in chemical fertilizer plants is usually 2 - 4 %, if the emissions are not handled properly, can cause an area of thousands of square kilometers of surrounding land to become heavily contaminated with fluorine. Near metallurgical factories, because the exhaust gas contains a large amount of lead, cadmium, chromium, copper, etc., the surrounding land will be polluted by these substances. Consequences of seriously degraded soil environment pollution have a number of manifestations such as: • Vulnerable to water erosion, when experiencing large movements such as landslides when rainfall is high, vegetation is destroyed, improper farming, nutrients are lost due to sediment and washed out by water currents , about 10 times the amount of nutrients and drift; • Excess salt: Soil has excess Na+ but lacks necessary nutrients; • Chemical degradation: Related to the loss of essential and basic nutrients as well as the formation of toxins Al3+, Fe2+ .. when these criteria are too high or too low, both affect the environment. • Biological degradation: An increase in the mineralization rate of humus without compensating for organic matter will make the soil quickly impoverish, reduce its ability to absorb and reduce the ability to provide N for organisms. . Biodiversity in the soil environment is reduced. • Change the composition and properties of the soil; harden the soil; acidify the soil; changes the nutrient balance between soil and plants due to excess nitrogen content in the soil (only about 50% of nitrogen applied in the soil is used by plants, the rest is a source of soil pollution) . • Soil pollutants can be solid, liquid or gaseous. They degrade the quality and content of minerals in the soil and disturb the biological balance of soil organisms. Once the soil is contaminated, the treatment is extremely difficult and takes a lot of effort and money. Therefore, it is necessary to have measures to prevent soil pollution, in which the most important solution is to raise people's awareness of waste disposal.

Dormant user Hoang Ngan

3 Comments

Joon Mentor says :
Hello Hoang, this is your mentor Joon.

Such contaminants, which you have mentioned in your article, increases combines with the ions on the soil which was supposed to be absorbed by the plants. That is how it reduces fertility of the soil. Moreover, once it flows into water streams of ground water, it would lead to further stage of pollution. There are no clear ways of recovering for the pollution and therefore, the best way to do so is by raising awareness among people. Hope more people are aware that they should dispose waste in proper manner.

Well read your article, and let's keep up!

Best,

Joon
Posted 30-04-2022 23:52

Chelwoon Mentor says :
Hello Hoang, this is your mentor Chelwoon.

Most Southeast Asia countries are facing many types of problems because of high rate of population growth and rapid development.
Thank you for introducing the types and characteristics of contaminants specifically. Of course, the most important thing is putting them into action, but we should also understand what the causes of pollutions are. SO42- is also classified as a contaminant in the water pollution, but alum and ferric salts such as Fe3+, Al3+ which are causes of the alum soil pollution are used for a coagulation process for purifying water bodies.

Thank you for the article!

Regards,
Chelwoon

Posted 29-04-2022 04:21

Shreya Kaushik