Accumulation of heavy metals and trace elements in fluvial sediments received effluents from traditional and semiconductor industries

Abstract

Metal accumulation in sediments threatens adjacent ecosystems due to the potential of metal mobilization and the subsequent uptake into food webs. Here, contents of heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn) and trace elements (Ga, In, Mo, and Se) were determined for river waters and bed sediments that received sewage discharged from traditional and semiconductor industries. We used principal component analysis (PCA) to determine the metal distribution in relation to environmental factors such as pH, EC, and organic matter (OM) contents in the river basin. While water PCA categorized discharged metals into three groups that implied potential origins of contamination, sediment PCA only indicated a correlation between metal accumulation and OM contents. Such discrepancy in metal distribution between river water and bed sediment highlighted the significance of physical-chemical properties of sediment, especially OM, in metal retention. Moreover, we used Se XANES as an example to test the species transformation during metal transportation from effluent outlets to bed sediments and found a portion of Se inventory shifted from less soluble elemental Se to the high soluble and toxic selenite and selenate. The consideration of environmental factors is required to develop pollution managements and assess environmental risks for bed sediments.

Climate Change Impacts on Sediment Quality of Subalpine Reservoirs: Implications on Management

“…Grain size is one of main physical characteristics determining the accumulation of micropollutants in sediments [3,37,79,80,81]. As well, TOC plays a fundamental role in the retention of contaminants in sediments [3,16,51,82,83,84]. Therefore, the inverse relation between some micropollutant concentrations (e.g.…”

Bioaccumulation of heavy metals inEphemera danicalarvae under influence of a trout farm outlet waters

“…Owing to their toxicity and increased concentration in aquatic ecosystems, metals represent a growing problem on the global level, since once they enter an ecosystem they constitute a potential danger to living organisms for a number of years (Geffard et al, 2003;Fernandes et al, 2007;Snodgrass et al, 2008;Besser et al, 2009;Abdel-Baki et al, 2011), in as much as they are deposited both in the sediment (Fernandes et al, 2007;Abdel-Baki et al, 2011) and in tissues of aquatic organisms, where in elevated concentrations they have various toxic effects (Shahbaz et al, 2013: Ezejiofor et al, 2013. It is known that river sediments can receive high concentrations of heavy metals, which remain as difficultly degradable matter in the rivers (Fernandes et al, 2007;Abdel-Baki et al, 2011), and if the sediment contains a large amount of organic material it can bind metals in even greater measure (Zhang et al, 2014;Hsu et al, 2016;Strom et al, 2011). Increase in the amount of organic matter in a riverś sediment can occur under influence of the outlet water from a trout farm, which introduces remains of uneaten food and trout faeces into the recipient stream (Liao, 1970;Weston et al, 1996), with the result that metals accumulate in the sediment directly below the trout farm, enabling aquatic organisms to accumulate them in some measure (Burridge et al, 2010).…”

“…The first part of this investigation, dealing with the effects on the larvae antioxidative defense, has already being published (Božanić et al, 2018). In as much as river sediment burdened with organic pollution binds greater amounts of heavy metals than an unburdened recipient stream (Hsu et al, 2016;Burridge et al, 2010), the purpose of the present work was to establish whether an increase in the concentration of certain heavy metals occurs in water and sediment of the Skrapež River, a stream under influence of the outlet water from a trout farm, and ascertain the extent of metal bioaccumulation in the body of Ephemera danica larvae so as to determine their potential usefulness as a bioindicator of the pollution of river systems by heavy metals.…”

Climate Change Impacts on Sediment Quality of Subalpine Reservoirs: Implications on Management

“…Grain size is one of main physical characteristics determining the accumulation of micropollutants in sediments [3,37,[79][80][81]. In addition, TOC plays a fundamental role in the retention of contaminants in sediments [3,16,51,[82][83][84]. Therefore, the inverse relation between some micropollutant concentrations (e.g., Cd, Pb and Hg) and sedimentation highlighted in the PCA analyses can be explained considering the dilution factor determined by increasing coarse sediments at lower altitudes.…”