Environmental behaviour of strontium in some salt affected soils along the Western North coast of Egypt

In the present work, Sr2+ contamination in some salt affected soils along the Western North coast of Egypt was investigated. The contamination of Sr2+ in different soils samples was evaluated using different risk indices such as enrichment factor (EF), geo-accumulation index (Igeo),contamination factor (CF), the degree of contamination (Cd), modified degree of contamination (mCd ), pollution load index (PLI), soil pollution index (SPI), and ecological risk assessment (RAC). The concentrations of Sr2+ were investigated according to the bioaccumulation (BAC) in different plant species such as tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), leek (Allium ampeloprasum), barley(Hordeum vulgare ), olive (Olea europaea) , alfalfa (Medicago sativa ), sweet sorghum (Sorghum vulgare var. sacchratum), fig ( Ficus carica), apple (Malus domestica), mountain spinach (Atriplex hortensis), onion (Allium cepa), eggplant (Solanum melongena), camphor (Cinnamomum camphora ), faba bean (Vicia faba), galawein (Sonchus oleraceus L.), and orange (Citrus Sinensis). The obtained results showed that, the mean value of EF for Sr2+ was the highest (15) among the other associated elements. Although, the highest Igeo values was observed with Zn2+ followed by Cd2+ and Sr2+, Sr2+ is not belongs to contamination category. According to CF index, Sr2+ is classified as low degree of contamination. According to mCd classification, Sr2+ contamination level is belongs to nil to very low degree of contamination class. The SPI presented that Sr2+ is considered moderate to highly contamination element. The highest values of BAC was found to be 2.018 in leek, while the lowest BAC valuewas 0.005 in tomato. To compare the concentration of median Sr in the studied area with its concentrations in the land of the African continent and the world, the median Sr in the western north coast of Egypt (449 mg/kg) appear to be very close to the empirical data value from Africa and higher than the empirical data value globally.