Assessment of heavy metal concentrations in streams and economic effects in Haut-Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo

The Central African Copper belt located in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo constitutes one of the important copper and cobalt deposits in the world.In Haut-Katanga, mining companies discharge into streams both solid and liquid wastes from their industrial plants that pollute the soil and water of streams.The paper analyzes water as samples collected from streams around the cities of Lubumbashi, Likasi, and Kafubu in August and September 2012.This paper aims to assess the concentration of heavy metals in streams of Haut-Katanga.The concentration levels of six metals including copper, cobalt, iron, cadmium, and manganese were assessed by the Inductivity Coupled Plasma Mass Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES).The results show that the mean concentrations of Mn, Co, Cu, Zn, Fe, Ni, Cd, As, Pb and Cr were 19106.31,9935.75, 4353.86,501.64, 33.79, 33.46, 11.41, 3.24, 0.36, and 0.11g/L, respectively.High concentration of cadmium in the Buluo stream and Kafubu stream were 79.1 g/L and 0.2 g/L respectively.The polluted water of streams and rivers poses a threat to human health, fish and wildlife that depend on it for drinking and farming.The contaminated water may Assessment of heavy metal concentrations in streams and economic effects in Haut-Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo John Ngoy KALENGA increase the cost of medical treatment as well as reducing economic income for people living around the mining area.