Dredged material of Izmir harbor: its behavior and pollution potential

Abstract

The Arap and Melez Rivers discharge to Izmir Bay bringing wastewater together with rainwater coming from their catchment areas. There is an artificial harbor built at the discharge point of the Melez River acting as a sedimentation area for the suspended matter carried by these rivers. This area has a storage capacity of 3 to 4 years. After this period, the sediments are dredged and disposed from the region. In this study, various studies were carried out in order to determine the geotechnical properties and pollution parameters of the sediments; the results of many previous studies are also given. In the analyses done on dredging samples, it was observed that sulfur, oil and grease, phosphorus, nitrogen and heavy metal concentrations were very high. The reason for these high concentrations is the direct discharge of untreated wastewater formed in the industries located along the Arap and Melez Rivers. The pollutants carried to Izmir Bay by these rivers then settle down inside the artificial harbor and reach high concentrations in bottom sediments. As a result of this study, some possible environmental effects of land disposal of this material are discussed and suggestions are given for final disposal alternatives.

The characteristic of Pb isotopic compositions in different chemical fractions in sediments from Three Gorges Reservoir, China

“…Nonetheless, the average Pb concentration in the TGR was comparable to sediments in the Pearl River Estuary (Ip et al, 2007;Liu et al, 2002Liu et al, , 2003 and Western Xiamen Bay . Moreover, this was noticeably lower than in sediment samples from other large industrialized/urban ports in the world such as Boston Harbor (Bothner et al, 1998), New York Harbor (USA) (USEPA-Region, 1999), Bremen Harbor (Germany) (Hamer and Karius, 2002) and Izmir Harbor (Turkey) (Filibeli et al, 1995) (Table S3).…”

Iron Budget and Its Correlations with Macronutrients in the Inshore Waters of the Aegean Sea

“…It is assumed that anoxic or suboxic conditions were developed in the 1960s and 1970s when the urbanization and industrialization around the bay reached a critical level. Considering the density of the surface sediment with 10-cm thickness as 2.3 g/ml and about 63% of dry solid content of surface sediment (Filibeli et al 1995), the total Fe transport from sediment into the water column (TtrFe StW ) of the inner and middle bay during 30-40 years can be estimated as 58-109 10 3 tonnes Fe by using Eq. 1.…”

“…Thus, the total nonbiogenic PFe would be about 19 ± 13 mmol m −3 in early April 1998, 10 ± 6 mmol m −3 in mid-April 1998, 1.3±0.5 mmol m −3 in September 1998, 2.7±2 mmol m −3 in November 1998, and 2.7±2 mmol m −3 in January 1999, in the inner and middle bay. The sediment sludge in the inner bay composes of the particles with different sizes whose distribution is, 30% of 50-10µm, 30% of 10-1µm, and 40% of <1-µm particles (Filibeli et al 1995). An empirical in situ sedimentation rate of these particles usually varies between 30 and 100 mday −1 (Syvitski et al 1987) under the effects of the processes such as flocculation, agglomeration, pelletization, and eddy diffusion.…”

“…This performance provides removal of approximately 20 tonnes day −1 of Fe from sediment. This figure was calculated from the solid content of the dredged sediment of about 64% (w/w) as given in Filibeli et al (1995) and the mean Fe content of dredged sediment of around 47.5 mg g -1 , as given in Aksu et al (1998). This sediment was dumped into the outer bay (Aksu et al 1998).…”