RESUMO
The study was conducted with the selected soil profile of burnt [soil around brick kilns] and unburnt [agricultural land] soils in the Dinaj'pur, Rangpur, Rajshahi, Khulna and Patuakhali districts at the western part of Bangladesh to evaluate the effects of brick kilns on soil degradation and environmental pollution. The pH values of the unburnt soils increased as a function of the soil depth for Rangpur, Khulna and Patuakhali, while decreased for the soil profiles in Dinajpur. Burning of soils significantly [p<0.05] decreased the average pH values of soils by 0.4 pH units [7% increased over average content = IOAC], but strikingly increased the average EC values from 0.26 to 1.77 mS/cm [592% IOAC] and the effect was pronounced with the depth function. The average sand content of the soil profiles increased by 330%, while the silt and clay contents decreased by 49 and 40%, respectively. The average losses arising from the burning of agricultural soils were amounted to 63% for organic matter, 56 to 86% and 23 to 88% for available and total N, P, K and S, respectively. This huge loss through the burning of 1 m deep soil profile, i.e. almost 3/4[th] of the deterioration of soil fertility is not only reducing the crop production but also polluting the associated environment and atmosphere. The burning of enormous C, N and S not only degrade the agricultural soils but also contributing to the changes in the global climate