TITLE:
Health Risk Assessment of Some Heavy Metals in Water and Sediment at Marsa-Matrouh, Mediterranean Sea, Egypt
AUTHORS:
Azza Khaled, Ahmed Abdel-Halim, Zeinab El-Sherif, Laila A. Mohamed
KEYWORDS:
Trace Metal, HQ, Human Health Risk, Marsa-Matrouh, Mediterranean Sea, Egypt
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.8 No.1,
January
25,
2017
ABSTRACT: In an
attempt to evaluate the environmental quality of Marsa-Matrouh city which covered the most famous beaches in
Egypt, an environmental risk assessment was performed, including a screening level ecological risk
assessment. The aim of this work was to determine which metals could possibly
pose toxic adverse ecological effects to marine organisms and to determine whether
hot spots exist or not. To fulfill the goals of study, surfacial sediment and
water samples were collected from ten different locations covering Marsa-Matrouh
city during four seasons (2010-2011). The average concentrations of Cd, Cu, Fe,
Ni, Pb and Zn were 2.381 ± 3.389, 9.307 ± 14.159, 68.969 ± 9.397,
2.642 ± 1.004, 16.712 ± 8.469, 31.168 ± 15.322 μg/l
in water and 0.755 ± 0.240, 5.363 ± 1.581, 962.131 ± 975.084,
3.972 ± 2.180, 15.210 ± 4.434 and 24.608 ± 7.706 μg/g
dry weight in sediment respectively. The concentrations of the investigated six
metals in water were within the acceptable limits except for two stations
(Cleopatra and El-Obayed) which exhibited higher values than the permissible
level of Cd during autumn 2010. Metal pollution assessment for both water and
sediment was studied. Heavy metal pollution index indicates that water is not
critically polluted with respect to the investigated metals. For sediment
samples, threshold effect concentrations (TEC HQ) were lower than 1 except for Cd
which showed higher value than 1, indicating the possibility of occurrence of toxic
adverse ecological effects to benthic organisms for Cd, while rare adverse
ecological effects are expected to occur with respect to Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn.