title: Ecological impacts of Al-Jalamid phosphate mining, Saudi Arabia: Soil elemental characterization and spatial distribution with INAA.
abstract: Phosphate (P) industries will be one of the main industrial sectors in Saudi Arabia within the next few years. Al-Jalamid phosphate mine, which started operation a few years ago, is one of the biggest mining locations in the Middle East region. It is planned to mine 12 million tons run of mine ore per year (Mty) and produce about 4.5 Mty of phosphate concentrate for the next 20 years. Long term ecological impacts of phosphate mining activities on soil and groundwater should be investigated. The contaminated soil acts as a long term source of environmental contamination. The main aim of this work was to shed more light on the elemental characterization and spatial distributions in soil areas located in the vicinity of the phosphate mining activities. A total of sixty eight surface and subsurface soil samples from 34 locations around Al-Jalamid phosphate mine have been collected. The elemental characterization of soil samples was achieved using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Pollution indices, geoaccumulation (I(geo)) and pollution load (PLI) indices were calculated from some elements to evaluate the soil pollution. Until now, there is no existing pre-operational elemental characterization in soil to evaluate the foreseen ecological impacts of phosphate mining. Our results are the first to evaluate the present situation that will be the base for the future evaluations. The main aim of this work was to shed more light on the elemental characterization and spatial distributions in soil and their relation to phosphate mining activities, and to better understand the behavior of different elements in soil in an arid environment.
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Qassim University, Buraydah 51452, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Assuit 71452, Egypt. Electronic address: Atef_Eltaher@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: El-Taher
authors.affiliation: Grupo Física Nuclear Aplicada, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: García-Tenorio
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Nuclear and Radiological Regulatory Authority, Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: Ashraf E M
authors.initials: AEM
authors.lastname: Khater
keywords: El-Jalamid; Elemental Analysis; INAA; Phosphate Mine; Saudi Arabia; Soil