Distribution of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Sediment from Muar River and Pulau Merambong, Peninsular Malaysia

Distributions and source apportionment of sediment-associated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and hopanes in rivers and estuaries of Peninsular Malaysia

“…It is important to point out that the current study has demonstrated one of the highest PAH concentrations found in any sediments of the Malaysian aquatic environment. Compared with other areas in Malaysia, the total PAH concentrations in the present study were comparable or lower than those presented in the Prai and Malacca Rivers (Keshavarzifard et al 2014), in the Langat River (Bakhtiari et al 2009), and in aquaculture areas in Peninsular Malaysia (Retnam et al 2013), but were higher than those observed in the Merambong and Muar Rivers (Vaezzadeh et al 2014), in the Selangor River (Masood et al 2014) in the surface sediments in rural and urban areas of Malaysia (Saha et al 2009), and in aquacultures located in intertidal mudflats of the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia (Mirsadeghi et al 2013).…”

Distribution of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Surface Sediments of Langkawi Island, Malaysia

“…In previous studies, the source apportionment in island and tourism port area indicated mixed sources of PAHs in the sediments, but they largely originate from pyrolytic sources (Guo et al 2007;Nasher et al 2013;Vaezzadeh et al 2014). This can be seen in the study by Vaezzadeh et al (2014) in that the ratios of LMW to HMW PAHs were in the range 0.05 -0.33, indicating pyrogenic sources. Anthropogenic PAH inputs were more likely to be abundant at sites related to industrial discharges, shipping activities (dry docking) and sewage outfalls (Hosseini et al 2012).…”

“…In order to assess the current status of PAH pollution in Langkawi Island, concentrations of PAHs were compared with the data from previous studies at other places by Baumard et al (1998) which defined two pollution levels, where 0-1000 ng/g PAHs in sediment was classified low to moderately polluted and 1000-10000 ng/g was classified as being moderately to highly polluted. For areas near tourism ports, total PAH concentration levels the sediments from Olbia harbour (a tourist harbour located in northern Sardinia, Italy) ranged from 160 to 770 ng/g (Luca et al 2005), 1.4 to 205 ng/g for sediments from James Ross Island, Antartica (Klanova et al 2007), 38.6 to 122.8 ng/g from Merambong Island, Johor, Malaysia (Vaezzadeh et al 2014), 158 to 10463 ng/g from Suez Port (mixed industrialized and tourism port) and 2 to 59 ng/g in the ambient sediment of Kenting National Park, Taiwan (Ko et al 2014). From the values suggested by Baumard et al (1998) and some previous studies above, the results from this study show that PAHs from Langkawi Island are within the low to moderate pollution range.…”

“…They are introduced to aquatic environments via oil spill accidents, vehicular emissions, urban run-off and other combustion activities (Ying et al 2008). Several PAHs are known to be highly carcinogenic to humans, such as benza [a] (IARC 1983;Luca et al 2005;Vaezzadeh et al 2014).…”

“…Studies on PAH concentrations mostly focus on their ability to accumulate with suspended particles in the water column and settle as sediment within a specific time frame (Guo et al 2007). In previous studies, the source apportionment in island and tourism port area indicated mixed sources of PAHs in the sediments, but they largely originate from pyrolytic sources (Guo et al 2007;Nasher et al 2013;Vaezzadeh et al 2014). This can be seen in the study by Vaezzadeh et al (2014) in that the ratios of LMW to HMW PAHs were in the range 0.05 -0.33, indicating pyrogenic sources.…”