Concentration of heavy metals in a Niger Delta Mangrove Creek, Nigeria

Abstract

The concentration of some heavy metals, Ca, Mg, Fe, Zn, Pb, Cd, Cr, Ni, Hg, and total hydrocarbon content (THC) were assessed in the surface waters of a Niger Delta mangrove creek (Buguma Creek). Samples were collected between November 2004 and October 2006 from five stations. The minimum and maximum concentrations of these heavy metals in the creek were 7.21-228.5 mg/l for Ca, 51.18-428.3 mg/l for Mg, 0.01-6.78 mg/l for Fe, 0.010-0.43 mg/l for Zn, 0.01-0.61 for Pb, 0.01-0.11 for Cd, 0.01-1.49 mg/l for Cr, 0.01-2.73 mg/l for Ni, while Hg and the total hydrocarbon content was approximately 0.01 mg/l throughout the study period. The rank profile of metals according to their mean values was Mg > Ca > Fe > Zn > Ni > Cr > Pb > Cd > Hg in the study stations. There was no statistically significant difference (P > 0.05) in the concentration of heavy metals at the study stations. The EDTA hardness depicts hard water condition. The extremely low levels of the toxic heavy metals, Ni, Cr, Pb, Cd, and Hg, and total hydrocarbon content (THC) of <1 mg/l indicate that the water was not polluted.

Water quality assessment of Osse River, Gele-gele: a tributary of Benin River, southern Nigeria

“…The average Cadmium concentration in this study was 0.004mg/l and was greater than WHO limit and was highly significantly different across the sampled stations with station 3 having the highest value. This value obtained from this study was slightly higher than the Cadmium concentration (0.0012mg/l) obtained in Avsar River turkey (Ozturk et al, 2009) and lower than the value obtained from the Niger Delta creek (0.028mg/l) and Jabi lake (0.28mg/l) (Ogbeibu and Oribhabor, 2009;Umar and Ebong 2013). The mean Lead concentration (0.034mg/l) of the surface water is higher than the WHO limit but not significantly different across the stations.…”

“…The Average Chromium concentration found in Osse River was (0.13mg/l) which was greater than WHO limit and was not significantly different across the sampled stations. This value was higher than that reported by Ogbeibu and Oribhabor (2009) on the assessment of heavy metals on Niger Delta creek (0.025mg/l) and also that reported by Begum et al (2009) (0.0025mg/l) in Madivala lake. Adefemi and Awokunmi (2010) reported an average Chromium concentration of 0.2mg/l in Itaogbolu area of Ondo state.…”

Oil Spillage and Heavy Metals Toxicity Risk in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

“…Studies by Ogamba et al evaluating the level of heavy metals in water and sediments from Kolo Creek and Oribhabor et al which evaluated the concentration of heavy metals in surface water from Buguma Creek reported that the concentrations of heavy metals were within permissible limits specified by the World Health Organization (WHO). 38 , 39 , 40 Ubiogoro and Adeyemo evaluated water and fish samples from the Gbokodo river in Warri, the River Ethiope in Sapele, the Urie River in Igbide Isoko, Asaba-Ase creek, the Aragba River in Abraka, and Uzere creek, and found that most heavy metals were within the recommended limits set by the WHO, except for Fe and Ni, which were higher than the recommended level in fish. 41…”

Assessment of Heavy Metals Associated with Bottom Sediment of Asejire Reservoir, Southwest Nigeria

“…Concentration of Fe, Cu and Pb are uniformly higher than the background value. The high value of Fe in the reservoir is not unusual, as this phenomenon has been reported to be dominant in most tropical aquatic ecosystem [32,13,14,33,9]. Lead is toxic to humans and is a major anthropogenic sources included in the use of lead as petrol additives, runoff from cities, discharge on improperly treated waste effluents, sewage sludge and the use of pesticides containing lead compounds.…”

“…Recent studies on the sediment heavy metal quality of water bodies in Nigeria include the works of [13][14][15]. In Nigeria, most domestic sewage and industrial effluents from both rural and urban areas are released into the environment without proper treatment.…”