SOIL DEGRADATION IN SOLID WASTE IRREGULAR DISPOSAL AREA IN TROPICAL SEMIARID
Degraded areas. Contamination. Dumpsite. Heavy metals.
Accomplishing a diagnosis that supports an environmental degradation processes identification is required for effective recovery of the dumpsite. On this scenario, the aim of this study is to evaluate the physical and chemical attributes, and the heavy metals contents in soil in order to identify degradation processes installed in solid waste irregular disposal area in tropical semiarid. Soil samples were collected at depths of 0-20 cm and 20-40 cm on the disabled dumpsite area, in ephemeral drainage area of Brejo Dam and area under native forest used as quality reference. Therefore, the evaluated attributes were: bulk density (BD) and particles density (PD), total porosity (TP), particle size, pH, electrical conductivity (EC), organic matter (OM), available phosphorus (P), total nitrogen (N), exchangeable cations (Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+ e K+), exchangeable and potential acidity, and from these the sorption complex soil, availables and totals metals contents. The data were treated with descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Thus, the water and wind erosion, substrate cover disturbance, overload salts, available phosphorus, nitrogen, organic matter and heavy metal contamination are degradation processes inferred on solid waste irregular disposal in the soil. These processes contribute to increasing the potential spread dumpsite contaminants to the watershed.