Assessment of flood-induced changes in soil heavy metal and nutrient status in Rajanpur, Pakistan Farhan Hafeez & Noman Zafar & Rashid Nazir & Hafiz Muhammad Rashad Javeed & Muhammad Rizwan & Faridullah & Saeed Ahmad Asad & Akhtar Iqbal Received: 27 April 2018 /Accepted: 5 March 2019 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 Abstract Flood events around the globe have severely impaired the soil functioning resulting in compromised food security in several parts of the world. The current study was aimed to explore the impacts of floods on soil heavy metals and nutrients status at three locations; Tibbi Solgi (TS), Vinri Khosa (VK), and Noshehra West (NW-control) in the district Rajanpur of Punjab, Paki- stan. TS and VK sites were under regular influence of flooding over the last many years, but no flood event was reported on NW site during the same tenure; hence, it served as control. Sampling was carried out before and after flooding on the experimental sites. Vegetation cov- er was monitored through remote sensing techniques. Results revealed varying effects of floods on soil heavy metals; Cd, Cr, Pb, and soil phosphorous and nitrates. Flood events increased the Cd while lowered Pb con- centration at VK site; however, flooding did not influence the status of Cr in soil. Similar to the trend observed in case of Cd, soil phosphorous and nitrates were reduced after flood events. Correlation analyses of soil physicochemical properties with soil heavy metals and nutrients indicated that after flood events, soil tex- ture and organic carbon content seem to be the major factors driving the shift in soil heavy metals and nutrient concentrations. Although pollution indices indicated a marginally low contamination levels, but as projected in empirical studies, regular flood events in the studied sites may contaminate the whole ecosystem rendering it unfit for agricultural productivity. Keywords Floodplains . Heavy metals . Indus River . Soil nutrients . Environmental pollution Introduction Floods have been reported to be one of the major natural disasters havocking lives and infrastructure. Globally, one-third among the losses caused by natural disasters are attributed to floods (Ubuoh et al. 2016). In Pakistan, floods rank second to earthquakes and usually occur during monsoon season, July–August in the catchment areas of Indus River System tributaries (Tahir 2007), where 2010 super flood was the third deadliest natural disaster event to strike the country since 1950 (EM-DAT 2013). As of the 1990s, the Indus River and its tribu- taries was recognized as the world’ s largest contiguous irrigation system with a total length of 58,000 km (UNDP 2016). Floods have varying impacts on whole Environ Monit Assess (2019) 191:234 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-7371-x F. Hafeez : N. Zafar : R. Nazir : Faridullah : A. Iqbal (*) Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Abbottabad Campus, Abbottabad 22060, Pakistan e-mail: akhtariqbal@cuiatd.edu.pk H. M. R. Javeed Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad, Vehari Campus, Vehari, Punjab, Pakistan M. Rizwan Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Government College University, Allama Iqbal Road, Faisalabad 38000, Pakistan S. A. Asad Centre for Climate Research and Development (CCRD), COMSATS University, Park Road, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan