ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Soil Sci.
Sec. Pedometrics
Volume 5 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fsoil.2025.1634647
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvanced Geochemical Mapping and Geochemical Background/Baseline: An Environmental PerspectiveView all 7 articles
Accumulation of potentially toxic elements in vegetable-cultivated soils from an agri-intensive region of southwest Punjab, India: Contamination status and the effect of crop rotation practices
Provisionally accepted
- Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, India
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In the present study, a total of 149 VG soil samples (0−10cm depth) were collected from different sites in the Bathinda and Mansa districts of Punjab during the winter season of 2023-2024. In other seasons, these sites were used to grow various crops, including vegetables, as well as rice, wheat, cotton, and maize, as part of a crop rotation system. The rice-vegetable (RC-VG) and vegetable-vegetable (VG-VG) patterns dominated crop rotation fields. Additionally, 10 soil samples from undisturbed/uncultivated lands were collected for comparative analysis and to estimate the region's background PTE levels. The results showed that the soils were slightly alkaline (pH: 6.56 to 9.29; average 7.9) and not saline (EC: 173 to 3230 µS cm−1) in nature. The contents of U and PTEs were significantly higher (p<0.05) in VG soils compared to undisturbed soils; however, when compared with the regional studies and the reference values of World and Indian soils, all concentrations remained within the limits, indicating no significant enrichment. The content of PTEs did not vary significantly among different crop rotation patterns, although slightly higher levels of PTEs were noted for RC-VG fields. The pollution indices (calculated using site-specific background values), such as contamination factor (CF) and enrichment factor (EF) revealed low to moderate level of contamination in cultivated soils, except Pb, which showed moderate to very high levels of pollution. Furthermore, the pollution load index (PLI; 0.7 to 2.8) and potential ecological risk (RI; 41-250) suggested a low to moderate risk category for toxic elements with Cd and Pb being the major contributors. Fertilizer analysis revealed that this contamination may be attributed to the overuse of chemical fertilizers, especially phosphate-based fertilizers, which enriched with U, Cd, Pb, and other PTEs. Although, U enriched groundwater, in conjunction with phosphate fertilizers, could contribute to higher U content in cultivated soils, its impact on U accumulation in VG cultivated lands appeared to be minimal. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the significant correlation (p < 0.01) between Fe-Mn and Zn-Cr-Cu-Ni-Pb-Cd-U suggest that secondary Fe/Mn oxyhydroxides play a major role in adsorbing these elements in soils.
Keywords: Vegetable cultivated soil, Potentially toxic elements, Irrigation water, Ecological health risk, Malwa region
Received: 24 May 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sahoo, Barman, KUMAR, Ngangom and Chaudhari. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Prafulla Kumar Sahoo, Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, India
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