Spatial Variation of Arsenic in Soil, Irrigation Water, and Plant Parts: A Microlevel Study

Arsenic pollution became a great problem in the recent past in different countries including Bangladesh. The microlevel studies were conducted to see the spatial variation of arsenic in soils and plant parts contaminated through ground water irrigation. The study was performed in shallow tube well command areas in Sadar Upazila (subdistrict), Faridpur, Bangladesh, where both soil and irrigation water arsenic are high. Semivariogram models were computed to determine the spatial dependency of soil, water, grain, straw, and husk arsenic (As). An arsenic concentration surface was created spatially to describe the distribution of arsenic in soil, water, grain, straw, and husk. Command area map was digitized using Arcview GIS from the "mouza" map. Both arsenic contaminated irrigation water and the soils were responsible for accumulation of arsenic in rice straw, husk, and grain. The accumulation of arsenic was higher in water followed by soil, straw, husk, and grain. Arsenic concentration varied widely within command areas. The extent and propensity of arsenic concentration were higher in areas where high concentration of arsenic existed in groundwater and soils. Spherical model was a relatively better and appropriate model. Kriging method appeared to be more suitable in creating interpolated surface. The average arsenic content in grain was 0.08-0.45 mg/kg while in groundwater arsenic level it ranged from 138.0 to 191.3 ppb.