Contamination Study of Water, Soil and Wheat to Arsenic of the Bijar Region

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element which pose a potential risk to groundwater quality, as well as food safety through As transportation in soil-water-plant systems. Therefore, plants such as cereal are the main way of As transportation to the food chain. In this study, to evaluate the arsenic transfer rate in agricultural products and the risk of its poisoning, surface water, soil and wheat samples were collected from the Bijar County, which has a history of naturally occurring arsenic pollution. The As concentration of surface water and soil samples are in ranged of 0.52-484.64 μg/L and 138.2 to 1775.2 mg/kg respectively. Also some physico-chemical parameters of water and soil which had direct effects on As pollution were estimated. The As concentration of wheat shoot samples were between 1.79-30.58 mg/kg and As concentration of wheat seed samples were 0.003-0.08 mg/kg. Based on these results, arsenic levels in waters and soils were significantly correlated, but arsenic accumulation in wheat samples were not correlated significantly with soil arsenic concentration.