THE IMPACTS OF LONG-TERM INTENSIVE FARMING APPLICATIONS ON THE HEAVY METAL CONCENTRATIONS IN SOILS

Abstract

Intensive farming applications have been increasingly employed to balance the increasing world population and decreasing farming lands in the last half-century. The main purpose of these efforts is to obtain greater amounts of yield per area using modern agricultural methods. However, uncontrolled intensive farming applications (fertilization, irrigation, disinfection, etc.) disturb certain physical, chemical, and biological properties of soils. Especially the uncontrolled chemical fertilization applications increase the heavy metal concentrations in farming lands. The study compares certain properties of the soils from an active farming land (A-FL) in which intensive farming activities have been carried out since 1996 to those of the soils from a passive farming land (P-FL) with no farming activities. For this purpose, the study examines the changes caused by 25-year-long agricultural activities in the soils. The results revealed that the soils from the A-FL had higher levels of pH, electrical conductivity (EC), lime, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), arsenic (As), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), and zinc (Zn) than the soils from the P-FL. The negative impact of intensive agricultural activities on the soils is of great importance in terms of soil management and food safety. The uncontrolled agricultural applications indirectly and negatively affect human and animal health worldwide.