“…It supported many anthropogenic pressures, such as industrial, urbanization and agricultural activities (metallurgical industry, cement works, tire pollution factories, etc.). Previous research described the occurrence of different POPs in this area: polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) (Derouiche et al, 2004;Barhoumi et al, 2014b), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (Trabelsi and Driss, 2005;Barhoumi et al, 2014cBarhoumi et al, , 2016, and PBDEs and their methoxylated analogs (MeO-PBDEs) (Ben Ameur et al, 2013;Mekni et al, 2019). In this area, POPs appear with high concentration in surface sediment ( PAHs from 16.9 to 394 ng/g dw) (Barhoumi et al, 2014c), in fish ( PBDEs: 171 ng/g lw) (Ben Ameur et al, 2013), and clams ( PBDEs: 95.6 ng/g lw) (El Megdiche et al, 2017).…”