EFFECT OF AL-QUBASA CEMENT FACTORY ON VEGETATION COVER OF IT'S SURROUND REGIONS

Abstract

The study area is a part of the Western desert of Iraq, which is rich in plant biodiversity, but suffers greatly from some industrial dust of factories, which affect the various forms of natural life. This paper focuses on the impact of the Qubasa cement factory on vegetation cover of the surrounding regions. This study included two parts of samples, the first within affected area of factory emissions and the second at unaffected area with factory emissions. The squares method to estimate the diversity of vegetation at each site was used. The collected data covered the environmental criteria such as plant abundance, frequency, intensity, number of species and biomass in each site, in addition to the estimated quantity of sediment materials on foliar part of vegetation. The results showed 37.8% decrease in the annual species at the affected area by factory emissions in comparison with unaffected regions, and clear decreasing in the, frequency and abundance of these species, which indicated the negative effect of the emissions materials on percent of these species was also found. The supremacy for perennial was for Salsola regida Pall, Alhagi maurorum and Artemisia scoparia while the supremacy for annuals plant took the following declining sequence: Diplotaxis hara (Forssk)> Lepidinm perfoliatum and Arnebia decumbens (Vent)> Bromus tectorum > Malva parviflora > Onobrychis squarrosa (Viv.)>Cardaria draba L.(Desv.) = Erodium glaucophyllum> Medicago raditata L. A disappearance of some plant species like Scorozonera paposa and Phalaris minor Retzin was noticed, which were in this ecosystem as mentioned by Guest (1966) study.