A master’s thesis at the College of Agriculture examined an environmental study of some soil pollutants surrounding the North Gas Company in Kirkuk Province.
The study, presented by student Fatima Jamal Kamel, aimed to investigate the contamination of soils surrounding the North Gas Company with heavy metals, study soil properties, assess the effect of these pollutants on maize plants, and estimate the bioaccumulation factor (BCF) of the studied plant in the research area.
The study concluded that the BCF values in all sites exceeded 1, which indicates that lead and cadmium were more concentrated in the plants than in the soil. This shows that the plants have a high capacity for accumulating these two elements, exceeding the permissible limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
