This study determined the concentrations of lead and cadmium in edible parts of Colocasia esculenta, Amaranthus spp.and Ipomoea batata cultivated on farms in industrially polluted sections of Nyabugogo Marsh in Kigali, Rwanda. The concentrations in all three crops exceeded European Union (EU) standards for metal concentration in food crops. C. esculenta roots (Taro) contained the highest concentration of lead (1.02 mg kg-1) and cadmium (0.56 mg kg-1), approximately ten and six times over the EU limits, respectively. Even though I. batata (sweet potato) contained the lowest concentrations of lead (0.75 mg kg-1), this is almost eight times the upper limit. The highest bioaccumulation factors (the ratio of plant metal concentration to that of the soil in which it is found growing) for both metals were observed in amaranth plants. The concentrations of lead and cadmium in the farm soils were all acceptable based on EU standards (300mg kg-1 for lead and 3mg kg-1 respectively. The average daily consumption by an adult in the community living around the Marsh and where some of the produce is sold is 50g of amaranth, 120g of taro and 180g of sweet potato. Based on the metal concentration and these rates of consumption, the daily dietary intake of lead by an adult in the community from amaranth, taro and sweet potato is 1 x 10-4, 3 x 10-4 and 4 x 10-4 mg kg-1 respectively. The daily intake of cadmium is 4 x 10-4, 1.7 x 10-4 and 1.2 x 10-4 mg kg-1 for amaranth, taro and sweet potato respectively. These metal intakes are well within the recommendations set forth by the World Health Organisation. The community also has access to multiple sources of dietary and non dietary zinc such as beans, milk and rain water collected from zinc coated roofing sheets, which serves to ameliorate the effects of cadmium. It is however worth noting that survey data may have yielded overestimates of these zinc sources, due to the conditions under which the surveys were conducted i.e. in the hearing of neighbors due to the cramped nature of housing, which may have prompted respondents to inflate consumption quantities of expensive food items. The calculated maximum recommended quantities for daily intake of the crops are very large and are unlikely to be consumed by the population i.e. >2kg of amaranth, >2 kg of taro and 3 kg of sweet potato per day for an adult. Additionally, because this is a poor community, access to such quantities of food on a daily basis is not likely. The community is therefore not exposed to health risks from consuming metal contaminated crops, largely because of the small quantities consumed. The local population is therefore at no immediate risk to exceeding metal consumption limits by consuming vegetables grown in the Nyabugogo Marsh, but the threats will likely increase if the pollution of the Marsh is not addressed.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:01:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DjesonMAC.pdf: 1628748 bytes, checksum: b6ef63ced97de5a10b49f957a2292346 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-11-30 / Availability of good quality water has been reduced vertiginously, over the last decade, in the world. In some regions, the water resources have high concentration of the dissolved salts, these characteristics of the water make it s use impossible. Water quality can be a limitation for irrigated agriculture, principally in regions of arid or semiarid climate where the water resources are generally saline and are exposed at high evaporation ratio. For that reason, precipitation of the salts occurs near the soil surface and those salts themselves cumulate in the vegetal tissue, reducing the soil fertility and crop production. The adoption of tolerant crop to the water salinity and soil salinity, adaptable to the climatic conditions is other emergent necessity. This work had the goal of studying the effects of four salinity levels of the irrigation water salinity and use of mulch, dried leaves of Forest mangrove (Acacia mangiumWilld), in cultivated soil with amaranth (Amaranthus cruentus, BRS Alegria variety), in greenhouse. It was utilized the transplant of plants to PVC columns, containing 30 kg of silty loam soil, 10 days after emerging, with space of 50 x 50 cm between lines. Treatments were composed by combination of four levels of salinity (0.147; 1.500; 3.000 e 4.500 dS m-1), obtained by addition NaCl (commercial) to irrigation water and soil with and without protection, by mulch. A factorial system 4 x 2 was used with four repetitions, totalizing 32 parcels. The concentrations of nutrients in soil solution have been evaluated, in the dry matter of the vegetal tissue (roots, stem, leaves and raceme residue), at the end of the vegetative cycle. The use of soil protection reduced time for the beginning inflorescence of plants, at the same time, the increase of the salinity delayed this phase of amaranth development. The use of the mulch effectively increased the height, stem diameter, area of the larger leaf, humidity and dry matter content and amaranth grain production. The vegetal species showed salinity tolerance to experimented levels. The adopted treatments did not affect the pH values, exchangeable cation contents, electrical conductivity of soil solution (EC1:5) and saturated extract (ECSE), and Ca+2, Mg+, Fe+2 and Mn+2 contents, in the soil solution. The increase of the salinity concentration in the irrigation water inhibited the mineralization process of the organic matter (OM) and, consequently, the efficiency in the it?s utilization by plants, at the same time, produced increase in the values of the exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP), sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) and potassium adsorption ratio (PAR), in the soil solution. Therefore, the use of the mulch did not affect the first three parameters. The protein and nutrient contents: K+, Ca+2, P, Mg+2 e Cu+2, in amaranth grains, were improved by tillage condition. The raceme residues showed chemical/nutritional composition that makes advantageous its application in animal ration. In this context, it follows that amaranth tolerate the saline stress, of the irrigation water, until 4.500 dS m-1, temperature and relative humidity of the air predominant in the experimental environment / A disponibilidade de ?gua de boa qualidade tem diminu?do vertiginosamente nas ?ltimas d?cadas, em todo o mundo. Em algumas regi?es os recursos h?dricos dispon?veis apresentam altos teores de sais dissolvidos, inviabilizando a sua utiliza??o. A qualidade da ?gua pode ser um fator limitante para a agricultura irrigada, principalmente nas regi?es de clima ?rido ou semi-?rido onde os recursos h?dricos s?o geralmente salinos e se encontram expostos a altas taxas de evapora??o que ocasiona a precipita??o de sais na superf?cie do solo e ac?mulo no tecido vegetal, diminuindo, respectivamente, a fertilidade e o rendimento da cultura. Logo, a ado??o de cultivares tolerantes ? salinidade da ?gua de irriga??o e do solo, assim como, resistentes ?s condi??es clim?ticas ? outra necessidade emergente na atualidade. Este trabalho teve o objetivo de estudar os efeitos de quatro n?veis de salinidade da ?gua de irriga??o e da cobertura morta, folhas secas de ac?cia (Acacia mangiumWilld), em solo cultivado com amaranto (Amaranthus cruentus, variedade BRS Alegria), conduzido em casa de vegeta??o. Foi utilizado o sistema de forma??o de mudas, transplantadas 10 dias ap?s emerg?ncia para colunas de PVC contendo 30 kg de solo franco-siltoso, no espa?amento de 0,50 x 0,50 m. Os tratamentos foram compostos pela combina??o de quatro n?veis de salinidade (0,147; 1,500; 3,000 e 4,500 dS m-1), obtidos pela adi??o de NaCl (comercial) ? ?gua de irriga??o, e solo com e sem prote??o por cobertura morta. Utilizou-se um arranjo fatorial 4x2 com quatro repeti??es, perfazendo um total de 32 parcelas. Foram avaliados os teores de nutrientes presentes na solu??o do solo e na mat?ria seca do tecido vegetal (ra?zes, caule, folhas, gr?os e res?duo de pan?cula), ao final do ciclo vegetativo. O uso de prote??o do solo reduziu o tempo para o in?cio da flora??o das plantas, ao mesmo tempo em que o aumento da salinidade retardou essa fase do desenvolvimento do amaranto. O uso da prote??o do solo proporcionou aumentos significativos na altura, no di?metro de caule, na ?rea da folha mais desenvolvida, na quantidade de mat?ria fresca e seca e na produ??o de gr?os do amaranto. A esp?cie vegetal apresentou toler?ncia ? salinidade, para os n?veis experimentados. Os tratamentos adotados n?o afetaram os valores de pH, capacidade de troca de c?tions (CTC), condutividade el?trica da solu??o do solo (CE1:5) e extrato saturado (CEES), e teores de Ca+2, Mg+2, Fe+2 e Mn+2, na solu??o de solo. O aumento da concentra??o salina na ?gua de irriga??o inibiu o processo de mineraliza??o da mat?ria org?nica (MO) e, consequentemente, a efici?ncia de seu aproveitamento pelas plantas, ao mesmo tempo em que provocou aumento nos valores da porcentagem de s?dio troc?vel (PST), da raz?o de adsor??o de s?dio (RAS) e de pot?ssio (RAP) na solu??o de solo. No entanto, o uso de prote??o do solo n?o afetou os tr?s primeiros fatores. Os teores de prote?na bruta e dos nutrientes: K+, Ca+2, P, Mg+2 e Cu+2, nos gr?os do amaranto, foram beneficiados pelas condi??es de cultivo. Os res?duos de pan?culas apresentaram composi??o qu?mica/nutricional que favorece a sua utiliza??o como complemento para ra??o animal. Neste contexto, pode-se concluir que o amaranto ? tolerante ao estresse salino, da ?gua de irriga??o, at? o n?vel de 4,500 dS m-1 e ?s condi??es de temperatura e umidade relativa do ar predominantes no ambiente experimental