Study of Lead Pollution in Air, Soil and Water Samples of Quetta City

Abstract

This study briefly presents the collected data of lead pollution in the environment of Quetta City in Balochistan, Pakistan .The samples were collected from different sites. The analysis of lead was carried out in underground water samples, the exhaust of different vehicles, roadside and sewage soils from selected points of Quetta City. The average discharge resulted in deposition by motorcycles (29.12g/h), cars (44.47g/h), wagons (176.54g/h) and buses (141.52g/h). The maximum deposition was 222.96 g/h from auto-rickshaws. The value for lead in smoke of different vehicles seems quite high when extrapolated to the large number of such vehicles for a longer time. The concentration of lead in roadside soil varied from 73.3 mg/kg (T & T closed colony) to 731.9 mg/kg (Sirki road bus-stop). The average content of lead in sewage soil of City Nala is 1250.6 mg/kg. The level of lead was more than WHO standards for such soils. The lead quantity in all 24 tube- well water samples, was slightly above the WHO standards (10 µg/L).The results of this study were comparable to similar study [7] in twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.