Modeling Soil Organic Carbon in Crude Oil Contaminated Soil in the Niger Delta

Oil spillage is a major environmental threat in south south of Nigeria where most of oil exploration and exploitation activities takes place. If this goes on unchecked or poorly managed, it would lead to total annihilation of the ecosystem. The objective of this study is to develop a model for the prediction of potassium depletion in the crude oil contaminated soil with time using regression analysis. Each sample containing 10kg of soil was artificially polluted with 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 liters of crude oil (Bonny Light). The potassium concentrations were determined using standard methods. Results shows that the concentration of residual potassium in the soil for all the volumes of crude oil introduced into the soil decrees significantly with time when compared to values obtained for the control samples. The concentration of residual concentration in the control soil sample was about three times higher than the concentration obtained for other samples. The results obtained from the derived model were very close to the experimental value. The model is suitable for determining potassium content in crude oil polluted site.