Assessment of the Pollution of some Heavy Metals in the Sediments of the Tigris River in the City of Mosul- Northern Iraq

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Renewable Energies, University of Mosul, Mosul, Iraq

2 Department of Physics, College of Science, University of Mosul, Mosul, Iraq

3 Department of Anesthesia Technologies, Al-noor university college, Nineveh, Mosul, Iraq

4 Physics Department, Faculty of Women for Arts, Science and Education, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

In this study, the concentrations of heavy metals were studied using atomic absorption spectroscopy of samples from the sediments of the Tigris River within the boundaries of the city of Mosul, northern Iraq, and the environmental parameters of heavy metals were calculated. The results showed that the average concentrations of Co, Cu, Cd, Pb, Zn, and Ni in (ppm) were (8.78, 30.42, 0.179, 12.04, 75.53, and 144.75), respectively, where these results were higher than the international accepted average. It indicates that the main factor in the high concentrations of heavy metals in the environment of the Tigris River in the city of Mosul is the pollution caused by human activities. The results of the environmental treatments for the studied heavy metals showed that the values of the enrichment factor (EF) were moderately contaminated with Cu, Cd, Ni, and Zn and not contaminated with Co and Pb. The value of the contamination factor (CF) for the sediments of the Tigris River in the studied areas showed that the sediments of those areas are moderately polluted with Co, Ni, and Zn metals. The degree of contamination (Cdeg) for the sediments of the study area in general ranges from low - medium pollution, the pollution load index (PLI) average of (1.03) showed that the sediments of the study area were contaminated with heavy metals. Therefore, we conclude that the environment of the Tigris River is polluted with heavy metals, but it is not at the level that causes concern at present.

Keywords


Adewoye, A. O., Ajibade, T. T., Adewoye, S. O., Olagunju, T. E. and Adagunodo, T. A. (2021, February). Pollution indices and health risk assessment of heavy metals in floodplain of urban catchment of Asa drainage systems, southwestern Nigeria. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 655, No. 1, p. 012091). IOP Publishing.
Al-Jaberi, M. H. and Al-Dabbas, M. A. (2014). Assessment of heavy metals pollution in the sediments of Iraqi coastlines. IJSR - International Journal of Scientific Research, 3(9). 455–459.
Al-Tamimi, O. S. and Ali, M. J. (2018). Geo-Environmental Evaluation of Shewasoor Soil, Kirkuk/NE Iraq. Kirkuk University Journal for Scientific Studies, 13(2), 82-100.
Bastami, K. D., Bagheri, H., Haghparast, S., Soltani, F., Hamzehpoor, A. and Bastami, M. D. (2012). Geochemical and geo-statistical assessment of selected heavy metals in the surface sediments of the Gorgan Bay, Iran. Marine pollution bulletin, 64(12), 2877-2884. 
Bryan, G. W. (1971). The effects of heavy metals (other than mercury) on marine and estuarine organisms. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Sciences, 177(1048), 389-410. 
Dahiya, V. (2022). Heavy metal toxicity of drinking water: A silent killer. GSC Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences, 19(1), 020-025. 
Dietterich, L. H. (2016). Plant-soil feedbacks in heavy metal soils. University of Pennsylvania. 
Gaur, V. K., Gupta, S. K., Pandey, S. D., Gopal, K. and Misra, V. (2005). Distribution of heavy metals in sediment and water of river Gomti. Environmental monitoring and assessment, 102(1), 419-433.
Eghbal N., Nasrabadi T., Karbassi3 A. R. and Taghavi L. (2019). Investigating the pattern of soil metallic pollution in urban areas (case study: a district in Tehran city). International Journal of Environmental Science and Technology, 16(11), 6717-6726. 
 Fazeli, G., Karbassi, A.R., Khoramnejadian, Sh.,  & Nasrabadi, T. (2018). Anthropogenic share of metal contents in soils of urban areas. Pollution, 4(4), 697-706.
Fazeli, G., Karbassi, A., Khoramnejadian, Sh. and Nasrabadi, T. (2019). Evaluation of urban soil pollution: a combined approach of toxic metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). International Journal of Environmental Research, 13(5), 801-811.
Jackson, M. L. (1958). Soil Chemical Analysis Englewood Cliffs. NT Prentice Hall Inc, USA.
Jain, V. K. (1978). Studies on effect of cadmium on the growth pattern of phaseolus aurius varieties, Absi, I. In Bot. Conf. JIBS (pp. 57-84). 
Jumbe, A. S. and Nandini, N. (2009). Heavy metals analysis and sediment quality values in urban lakes. American Journal of Environmental Sciences, 5(6), 678. 
Kim, Y., Kim, B. K. and Kim, K. (2010). Distribution and speciation of heavy metals and their sources in Kumho River sediment, Korea. Environmental Earth Sciences, 60(5), 943-952. 
Lindsay, W. L. (1979). Chemical equilibria in soils. John Wiley and Sons Ltd, p.449.
Mahmood, H. J. (2021). The influential factors on the geochemistry of chemical elements in recent sediments of the Tigris River, Iraq. Research Journal of Chemistry and Environment, 25(5), 151–159.
Manea, M. H., Al-Tawash, B. S. and Al-Saady, Y. I. (2019). Environmental Geochemical Assessment of Heavy Metals in Soil and Sediment of (Shatt-Al-Hilla) Babil Governorate, Central Iraq. Iraqi Journal of Science, 60(5), 1055-1068.
Mustafa, M. H. and Jankeer, M. H. (2007). Quality Difference Between Two Location on Tigris River Within Mosul City. Rafidain journal of science, 18(1 A). 
Navarro-Pedreño, J., Gómez, I., Almendro-Candel, M. and Meléndez-Pastor, I. (2008). Heavy metals in Mediterranean soils. Soil contamination research trends, 161-176. 
Qadoori, A. H. and Al-Tawash, B. S. (2021). Assessment of Some Heavy Metals in Water and Sediments Using Bio-Concentration Method of Al-Ma’ail River in Al-Kahla’a District, Maysan, Southern Iraq. The Iraqi Geological Journal, 54(1 D), 82-92.
Rzoska, J. (1980). Euphrates and Tigris, mesopotamian ecology and destiny. W. Junk bv. Pub., Hague-Boston-London. pp122.
Samuel, A. O., Madukwe, H. Y. and Oluwatoyin, F. I. (2019). Heavy metals concentration and pollution heavy metals concentration and pollution assessment of the beach sediments in Lagos, southwestern Nigeria. SDRP Journal of Earth Sciences & Environmental Studies, 4(2), 567–578.
Sin, S. N., Chua, H., Lo, W. and Ng, L. M. (2001). Assessment of heavy metal cations in sediments of Shing Mun River, Hong Kong. Environment international, 26(5-6), 297-301. ‏
Singh, M., Ansari, A. A., Müller, G. and Singh, I. B. (1997). Heavy metals in freshly deposited sediments of the Gomati River (a tributary of the Ganga River): effects of human activities. Environmental Geology, 29(3), 246-252. ‏
Suciu, I., Cosma, C., Todică, M., Bolboacă, S. D. and Jäntschi, L. (2008). Analysis of soil heavy metal pollution and pattern in Central Transylvania. International journal of molecular sciences, 9(4), 434-453. ‏
Tchounda, T., Mboudou, G. M. M. and Agyingi, C. M. (2019). Heavy metal concentration and distribution in stream sediments of Ndongo River, Buea, Cameroon-environmental impact. World Scientific News, 131, 15-36.
Touraj N., Gholamreza N. B.,  Abdolreza K. & Nasser M. (2010). Evaluating the efficiency of sediment metal pollution indices in interpreting the pollution of Haraz River sediments, southern Caspian Sea basin. Environmental monitoring and assessment, 171(1), 395-410 ‏
UNESCO, (1983). “Study of the Relationship Between Water Quality and Sediment Transport tech., Paper in Hydrology – 26 France, 213.
Usman, K., Zaib-un-Nisa, S. G., Gul, S., Ur, H., Rehman, M. A., Waqar, M., ... & Ishaq, H. K. (2017). Contamination of Heavy metals in River Shah Alam Peshawar:(A tributary of River Kabul) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan. Journal of entomology and zoology studies, 5(5), 510-512. ‏
Ustaoğlu, F. and Islam, M. S. (2020). Potential toxic elements in sediment of some rivers at Giresun, Northeast Turkey: A preliminary assessment for ecotoxicological status and health risk. Ecological indicators, 113, 106237. ‏
Welz, B. and Sperling, M. (2008). Atomic absorption spectrometry. John Wiley & Sons. ‏