1 Heavy metals accumulation in the edible vegetables grown on contaminated soils Mohamed Ahmed Youssef 1 and Mammdouh A. Eissa 2 1 Department of Soils and Water, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Assiut 71524, Egypt 2 Department of Soils and Water, Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Assiut 71526, Egypt Email of the corresponding author: Dr.mayoussef@yahoo.com Abstract Nowadays, using sewage wastewater for agriculture production is commune practice creating hazardous environment impacts. Assessment of these negative effects is a vital issue to prevent heavy metals to be introduced in the food chain. Three sites were chosen (Ellwan, Mangabad and El-Madabegh villages, Assiut Governorate) during 2012 and 2013 seasons in order to evaluate heavy metals concentrations in vegetable crops. Three types of vegetable crops vary in their edible part (leaves, roots and fruits) which irrigated by sewage wastewater (SW) or ground water (GW) were collected from the different sites and analyzed for their Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Cd, Ni and Pb contents. The obtained results showed that the edible leaves of lettuce, cabbage and spinach contained high concentration of heavy metals compared to the carrot, turnip and onion roots. The highest concentration of heavy metals was recorded in spinach leaves irrigated by SW. The lowest concentration of heavy metals was realized in okra fruits compared to other fruity vegetable crops (squash and tomato). All vegetable crops irrigated by GW contained low concentration of heavy metals compared to those irrigated by SW. Soil of all villages were contaminated by heavy metals either those irrigated by SW or GW. It is worthy to mention that irrigated edible crops especially spinach, onion, turnip and carrot by SW should be avoided. The potential hazards for humans and animals health were shown due to the high uptake of heavy metals especially Zn, Cd and Pb. Key word: Heavy metals accumulation, Sewage wastewater, Edible vegetables and Ground water. Introduction Water is a vital for all living creature it makes up to 50-97% of plant and animal and about 70% human body weight (Buchholz, 1998), but regrettably it is the most poorly managed resource in the world (Fakayode, 2005). Ground water (GW) resources in most areas of the world are shrinking at an alarming rate and may not meet the ever increasing demands from