ABSTRACT

Effect of human urine on the microbial and physicochemical properties of soil was investigated. The study was carried out in Michael Okpara University of Agricultural, Umudike, Abia State. where ten soil samples contaminated with human urine (UrCs) were randomly collected within the university campus from places noted for indiscriminate urination by students and analyzed for microbial and physicochcmical property. Two Uncontaminated Agricultural soil (UnCS) samples were used as control. Mean counts of microorganisms in urine contaminated soil review a high count of (2.21x 10) lbr total aerobic plate, Salmonella-Shigella (7.85 xl 06) , Vibro cholera (5.10 x 106) , Escherichia coli (8.45 106) and fungi (4.90x 10) as compared with the control which review a lower count of 7.22x i07 for total aerobic plate, Salmonella- Shigella (4.25x106), Vibro cholera (5.00x106), Escherichia coli (5.00 x 106) and fungi (3.10 x 10) respectively. The Gram staining reaction of the soil samples showed that Gram negative organisms were more abundant in the UrCs than Gram positive organisms. Bacteria isolated included Staphylococcus spp (13.47%), Pseudomonas spp (12.76%) and Klebsiella spp (8.51%). The most frequently isolated fungi from UrCs included Candida spp (20.00%), Penicillium spp (12.50%), Aspergillus spp (27.50%) and Rhizopus (15.00%) as compared with the control which had Fusarium spp (8.75%), Mucor spp (11.25%) and Aspergillus spp (27.50%). Physicochemical analysis of urine contaminated and uncontaminated soil samples showed that conductivity, moisture content, total organic carbon, nitrate ion. phosphate ion, sulfate ion nd total nitrogen were higher in the urine contaminated soil than in uncontaminated soil while the pH of uncontaminated soil (6.95) was higher than the contaminated soil (5.58). This indicated that prolonged exposure of soil to urine contamination could alter its microbial and physicochemical properties.