Lead Contamination of Soil in Africa: A Review of the Sources, Effects and Remediation Strategies

Abstract

Lead is one of the trace metals frequently found in the soil, air and water bodies. Since lead has no known biological value and highly toxic even at low a concentration, its ubiquity in the environment has become a major issue of concern globally. In this work, a review was conducted to identify the major sources of lead in African soils, its effects and remediation strategies. Literature search was conducted on the internet databases including Google Scholar, Google, Jstor and Oare. The keywords used for the search were ‘Lead, Soil, Contamination, Sources, Effects, Remediation Strategies, Physical, Chemical, Biological Method, Africa’. The articles selected were those written solely on lead or which lead was a component of, with reference to Africa and published between 2003 and 2018. From the review, the major sources of lead in African soils were agriculture, mining, industrial and domestic wastes, leaded-gasoline, lead-battery recycling and leaded-paint. The harmful effects of lead exposure could manifest in different forms in living organisms and may result to death. In the remediation technologies for lead contamination, there are physical, chemical and biological methods. The chemical and physical methods are relatively more effective and rapid as compared to the biological method. However, the biological method is cost-effective and more ecofriendly than both the chemical and physical methods. In order to protect the environment from secondary contamination originating from the chemical and physical methods, the biological remediation was recommended for large scale adoption since is it equally effective.