Mr Muhammad Ikram

Research project: The Biogeochemistry of groundwater-borne arsenic in irrigated agriculture in Pakistan

Abstract

Groundwater arsenic (As) contamination poses health risk to over 200 million people globally (Rasool et al., 2017), of which about 100 million people are in South and Southeast Asian countries, including India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. In parts of these countries, arsenic in groundwater occurs naturally at elevated levels. The use of such groundwater for drinking, crop irrigation in agriculture, livestock farming and cooking purposes is common. As a result, exposure to arsenic via the food-chain is significant in the affected regions (Tabassum et al., 2018; Shakoor et al., 2019).

The purpose of the research  is to evaluate the status of groundwater mainly used for the agricultural purpose and its potential impact on arsenic contamination in soils and farm produce, particularly wheat in Pakistan. For this, qualitative research method will be applied using sampling technique to test the quality of wheat grains, groundwater and soil.