• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
• /
• v.38 no.1
• /
• pp.17-22
• /
• 2019

BACKGROUND: Soil contamination of As is a very sensitive environmental issue due to its adverse impact on human health and different characteristics with other heavy metals. With public awareness of As poisoning, there has been growing interest in developing guideline and remediation technologies for As-contaminated soil. The objective of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of stabilizing amendments and soil dressing methods on the mobility of As in the contaminated rice paddy soils nearby mining area. METHODS AND RESULTS: Different amendments were mixed with surface and subsurface contaminated soils at a ratio of 3% (w/w) and monitored for five months. Three different extractants including 0.01M $CaCl_2$, TCLP, and PBET were used to examine As bioavailability in the soil and the concentration of As in rice grain was also measured with an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) spectroscopy. The results showed that all amendment treatments decreased As concentration compared to the control. Especially, coal mine drainage sludge (CMDS) treatment showed the highest efficiency of decreasing As concentration in the soil and rice grain. The values of Pearson correlation (r) between As concentrations in the soil and rice grain were 0.782, 0.753, and 0.678 for $CaCl_2$, TCLP, and PBET methods, respectively. Especially, $CaCl_2$ method was highly correlated between As concentrations of the soil and soil solution (r=0.719), followed by TCLP (r=0.706), PBET (r=0.561) methods. CONCLUSION: Stabilizing amendments can effectively reduce available As concentration in the soils as well as soil solution, and thereby potentially mitigating risks of crop contamination by As.