The effects of cement dust on some soil characteristics

This work presents an investigation on the changes in some characteristics of the soil due to the cement dust of air originated pollutants emitted from Erzurum-Askale Cement Plant. The comparative examination showed that the pollution caused an increase of 22.00% in lime, 15.93% in exchangeable cation, and therefore, 12 66% in pH and 7.86% in electrical conductivity. The sand and clay amounts were also observed to increase. These changes resulted in a decrease of 6.5% in organic matter content, 37.01% in field capacity and 32.52% in wilting point in polluted region. Since all these changes affect negatively the quality of the soil, the ecology controlling the microbial activities breaks down, affecting negatively the developments of the plants in the polluted region. The factory was refitted with a dust filtration system after this work.