Effect of Municipal Dumpsite on Vegetation and Soil

Comparative assessment of the soil and vegetation in a municipal dumpsite at Iguomo, Benin City, Nigeria at different distances from the dumpsite was carried out. An area of 30m2 was marked out and divided into three plots of 10 m2 each and these were designated as plots A, B and C. An area of 10 m2 was also taken at a distance of 100m away from the dumpsite, it served as the control plot or plot D. Population sampling was done to determine the species diversity across the plots. Soil samples were collected from each plot and microbial and physico-chemical analyses were carried out. Population studies showed that the closest plot to the dumpsite had the highest diversity among the plots. Values of 1.31, 1.04, 0.77 and 0.63 were recorded for species richness for plots A, B, C and D. Diversity indices for the plots were 0.96, 0.82, 0.64 and 0.58 respectively. Similar results were obtained for microbial analyses with bacterial counts of 1.10×105 ,7.0×104 ,4.2×104 ,6.7×104 cfu and fungal counts of 2.8×104 , 6.0×103 , 3.0×103 , 1.4×104 cfu recorded for plots A, B, C and D respectively. The result of physico-chemical analyses showed that treatment soil samples contained heavy metals which decreased with distance away from the dumpsites. It was also observed that the high soil nutrient level masked the effect of the heavy metals on the plants.