Measures to Protect Environmental Problems Caused by Animal Wastes in Rural Settlement Areas: A Case Study from Western Turkey

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to investigate environmental pollutions by animal wastes from the livestock farms around the rural settlement areas to examine their consequences and finally to find practical solutions. To do this, 135 livestock farms in 45 different settlement areas (villages) were investigated. It was seen that 85.2% of the livestock farms were closer (1.0-500 m) to the residential area than they should be while 94.8% them disposed or stored their wastes carelessly in open places around the barns. Majority of the people (91.8%) living in the research area complained of uncomfortable smells and sights. Water samples collected from the water sources in theses villages showed that nitrite under harmless level, varying between 0.06 and 0.22 mg L-1 were detected in 54.5% of the sources but excess coliform bacteria (75-600 kob/100 mL) were observed in 27.2% of the samples. In order to prevent all theses environmental problems, small farms should be unified under a cooperative and shifted to a certain safe distance. Wastes from the farms should be stored in leakage proof stores and be used for biogas and organic fertiliser production. The biogas production potential of the research region is computed to be 23 483 275 m(3).