Heavy metals uptake and translocation by lettuce and spinach grown on a metal-contaminated soil

Abstract: Nowadays, using sewage wastewaters in the irrigated agriculture is commune creating hazardous environment impacts. Assessment of these negative effects is vital issue to prevent heavy metals to be introduced in the food chain. Field and laboratory studies were conducted at Arab-El-Madabegh village, Assiut Governorate, Egypt, in order to evaluate the heavy metals concentrations in the edible parts of lettuce and spinach plants which irrigated with sewage water (SW). The obtained results indicated that, the soils of the studied site were contaminated by heavy metals. Zinc, Cu, Pb, Cd and Ni concentrations in the edible portions of the studied vegetables plants ranged between 75- 110, 15 - 17, 2 - 5, 1.0 -3.5 and 1.0 -2.5 mg kg−1, respectively. The obtained results showed that the concentrations of Zn, Pb, Cd and Ni in the edible parts of the studied plants were higher than the permissible limit levels but those of Cu were within the safe limit levels. It is worthy to mention that the irrigated edible vegetable crops with SW should be avoided. This study highlights the potential hazard for human health due to the uptake of high concentrations of heavy metals especially Zn, Ni, Cd and Pb by the studied vegetable crops.