Poll Res. 41 (3) : 1008-1015 (2022) Copyright © EM International ISSN 0257–8050 DOI No.: http://doi.org/10.53550/PR.2022.v41i03.036 CHEMICAL FERTILIZATION AS POTENTIAL PATHWAYS OF HEAVY METAL CONTENTS IN AGRICULTURAL SOIL IN MEMARI II BLOCK, WEST BENGAL, INDIA PIYUSH MAJI 1 AND BISWARANJAN MISTRI 2 Department of Geography, The University of Burdwan, Purba Bardhaman 713 104, West Bengal, India (Received 16 December, 2021; Accepted 2 February, 2022) ABSTRACT The major purposes of this study were to measure the level of metal pollution, identify the highly polluting elements and the principal fertilizers as potential sources of metals concentration in the agricultural soil. Extracted heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, and Zn) were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS VGB 210 System). Three identically different fields viz. bare land (Treatment A), bio-compost based fields (Treatment B) and chemical fertilizer-based fields (Treatment C), were selected to conduct this experiment. The findings show that Treatment C was identified as a critical condition for Cd (5.2 μg/g), Pb (4.1 μg/g) and Zn (3.9 μg/g), exceeding the contamination factor limit (Cf =1) and also having the highest value (16.4) of the degree of contamination (Cd=16) among the treatments. Pollution Load Index (PLI) also reconfirmed that treatment C was the major pathway of heavy metals (PLI=1.96) and crossed the standard limit (PLI=<1) of metals accumulation in soil. In the case of fertilizers, analysis came up with the fact that DAP, superphosphate and zinc sulphate were the maximum potential contributor for primary pollutant metals (Cd, Pb, and Zn). The mentioned fertilizers were also used to apply more than the recommended doses suggested by the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) India. KEY WORDS: Heavy metals, Agricultural soil, Chemical fertilizers, Contamination, Treatment fields INTRODUCTION In agricultural land, the major contributors of heavy metals have been identified as municipal wastes (King et al., 1974; Hanay et al., 2008), industrial wastes (Murtaza et al., 2010), agricultural fertilizers (Atafar et al., 2010; Singh et al., 2010) and pesticides (Davydov et al., 2018) etc. Apart from these, degraded rock particles (Zhao et al ., 2014) and atmospheric dust (Doabi et al., 2018) are also considered as sources of metals in soil. However, fertilizer seems to be the major source of heavy metals, which is directly, influenced the soil (Savci et al. 2012). Agricultural fertilizers are usually two types, organic (sewage sludge, cow dung compost, green manure etc) and inorganic (several chemical fertilizers like superphosphate, di-ammonium phosphate etc). Long-term application of excessive fertilizers causes metals accumulation in agricultural lands. Trace metals have been detected in paddy fields (Andreu et al., 1999; Malidareh et al., 2014), wheat fields (Brus et al., 2004; Hassan et al., 2013) mustard fields (Barman et al., 2000) and even massively in vegetable fields (Odai et al., 2008; Gebeyehu et al., 2020). In soil, heavy metals are up taken by plants cell and eventually these concentrate into the human body through the food chain (Sugiyama et al., 1994; Patra et al., 2011). Several studies have stated that through the food chain, Arsenic (As), Cadmium (Cd) or even Lead (Pb) are consumed by humans and which call for several diseases (Luc et al., 2012). Generally, fertilizers are commonly used to fill up the deficiency of particular nutrients in the soil.