Determination of Minerals and Heavy Metals Content of Agriculture Soils of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) By ICP-OES with GIS Mapping.

The soils of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are among the most challenging in the world, in terms of their efficient and sustained use. The conclusion and the recommendations of the comprehensive soil survey of Abu Dhabi and the Northern Emirates revealed the quick necessity for managing minerals of the UAE soils. Consequently, the first step is to determine baseline data of the soil minerals that can contribute to an understanding of the natural ecosystem management, and act as a reference data for land users and decision makers in the country. As a result, the main goal of this work is to provide the first comprehensive elementary fingerprint for the agricultural soils of the UAE. Over 100 agricultural soil samples were collected from all over the country. The minerals and heavy metals determination were achieved by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometer (ICP-OES). Soil analysis was done to determine the concentration of 22 elements (Al, As, B, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, Ni, P, Pb, S, Si, Sr, V and Zn). Additionally, the results were supported with minerals mapping for the UAE soils using the Geographic Information System (GIS).