Impact of pulp and paper mill effluents on soil enzyme activities

K. Venkateswar Reddy, T. Vijay

Abstract

Release of pulp and paper mill effluents on to the agricultural lands causes an indicative change in nutrient cycling and organic matter processing. In the present study, pulp and paper mill effluent discharged soil (test) and undischarged soil (control) were collected from the surrounding areas of pulp and paper mill. The soil enzyme activities such as Cellulase, Amylase, Protease, Lipase and Urease were examined. The experimental results indicated that, the selected Soil enzyme activities were significantly higher in the test sample than in the control. Additionally, activities were increased with increasing the incubation period up to 21 d over 0 d, however, activities were adversely affected at 28 d. Furthermore, relatively higher activities were observed in soil incubated in the presence of substrate than in the absence of substrate