DefinePK

Abstract

Particulate pollution by metals and metal oxides cause environmental and health hazards in different levels depending upon the spatial location and seasonal temporal variations. This paper aims to determine the level of bioaccumulation of particulate pollutants and its variation due to environmental location and seasonal impacts in a well-known versatile tropical waste land plant and bioindicator, Ricinus communis. The bioaccumulation across 3 sites namely residential, traffic prone and industrially polluted sites were chosen over two seasons namely dry and wet. The elemental compositional analysis was carried out using X-Ray fluorescence technology and micrographic images (SEM) were used to examine and compare the bio-accumulated particulate metallic pollutants in the aerial parts of the bio-indicator plant. The bioaccumulation of Pb was high in wet season than in dry season across all sites irrespective of the location, but the level of Pb accumulation was varying between sites due to influence of seasonal effects caused by monsoon indicating more accumulation in residential site due to industrial leach and percolation. Particulate accumulation of Ca and Fe and its oxides were persistently high both in dry and wet seasons in traffic prone site than the other 2 sites. Similarly, S, Si and their oxides were persistent across 2 seasons but, their levels were influenced by temporal factor of seasonal characters such as rain and arid climatic conditions, scoring high for wet season. The bio- accumulation of alkali earth metals, Na and Cl were influenced both by spatial and temporal factors such as anthropogenic activities and monsoon effects, accumulating more in industrial site and in wet season. This paper clearly demarcates the influence of spatial and temporal factors on 19 metallic and non metallic particulate matters and their oxides.