Groundwater Contamination around in Paddy Terrace in Badulla; special focus on nutrients and tracer element mobility
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Date
2015
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Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
Groundwater is the water located beneath the earth's surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures
of rock formations[4]. Pollution of groundwater due to contaminated soil and fertilizer/pesticide
is hurt animals, plants or humans and it may cause serious health problems, such as, hepatitis, blue
baby syndrome, kidney disease, etc (Dissanayake et al., 1984).
Paddy terrace is artificial replacement of nutrients in damage land. Due to erosion, nutrients were
removed from top soil. Therefore, farmers are needed to apply especially N, P, and K fertilizer in
artificial replacement. As a result of artificial nutrients added, groundwater can be highly
contaminated around paddy terraces. Previous researchers investigated the sediment and nutrient
(N, P, and K) movement behavior in terraced paddy fields system and groundwater contamination
around paddy terraces has not been conducted in Sri Lanka. Thus, this research aims at identifying
the excess nutrients and tracer elements with the excess pesticides/fertilizers from terrace paddy
farming on groundwater and surface water. Also, it is attempted to identify mobility of them to
groundwater and surface water during the different stages of the paddy cultivation.
A total number of 80 water samples were collected from Rabukpotha area in Badulla, Sri Lanka,
at frequent intervals during February to early July 2014, which coincides with the Maha season.
The sampling was carried out in two stages of the intermediate period. Before and after cultivation
two sample sets were collected and sample sets were renamed as A and B, respectively.
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Keywords
Mineral Sciences, Materials Sciences, Water Chemistry, Water Pollution, Water quality