Multivariate geo-statistical perspective: evaluation of agricultural soil contaminated by industrial estate's...

Present study was carried out to explore heavy metals pollution and potential ecological risk factors associated with agriculture soil irrigated with industrial effluents of Hayatabad industrial estate, Peshawar (HIEP) and Gadoon industrial estate, Sawabi (GIES) of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan through multivariate geo-statistical tools. Diverse statistical tools like cluster analysis (HC) and principal component analysis (PCA), along with geo-statistical approaches were applied to highlight the geogenic and anthropogenic sources of pollution. The results indicated that concentration of heavy metals in target areas was significantly higher than control. Both soils had significant to moderate enrichment of heavy metals, while Gadoon soil had moderate to considerable ecological risk factor. The geo accumulation indices (Igeo) tendency for heavy metals in both target soil (Gadoon and Hayatabad) were the same. The Pb concentration of both target areas falls in the extremely severely polluted category because of the excessive presence of industries producing lead-containing products. Hence, this study indicated that the majority of toxic heavy metals contributed to soil pollution in the studied areas are coming from industrial and commercial activities.