Abstract
Olive oil is a typical and valuable agro-industrial product in Mediterranean countries. In Tunisia, olive mill wastewaters (OMW) reach an amount of about 1,000,000 t year−1 and constitute a serious organic pollution risk because of the high chemical oxygen demand values and the presence of phytotoxic and antibacterial polyphenols. OMW have been generally stored in pond sites to be eliminated by natural evaporation or valorised by spreading on cultivated soils or by composting. Many researches on the interactions of OMW with soils at laboratory scale (columns) have been reported, but less attention have been paid to the effect of OMW on soils at field scale. The aim of this work is to investigate an area used for >15 years as an uncontrolled OMW pond site. The transformations of soil properties and groundwater occurring during OMW storage were characterised by the pH, phenolic contents, electrical conductivity (EC), moisture content and organic contents. The soil samples were taken from two borings and compared to those of a control one located near the pond site. Groundwater samples were taken on the accessible and nearest water wells to the evaporation ponds. The permeable silty and sandy layers in the site support the infiltration of OMW near the evaporation ponds. This infiltration has reached a depth of 6 m at a distance of almost 50 m laterally. The results show that the OMW infiltration in the subsoil has affected the pH, EC, organic content, phenolic compounds and the moisture.
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S’habou, R., Zairi, M., Kallel, A. et al. Assesing the effect of an olive mill wastewater evaporation pond in Sousse, Tunisia. Environ Geol 58, 679–686 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-008-1542-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-008-1542-3