Assessment of sediment quality collected from al-Hawizeh Marsh, Southern Iraq

Abstract EN

A study was carried out to investigate the concentrations and spatial distribution of trace metals in the sediments of AL-Hawizeh Marsh in the southern part of Iraq.

Sediment samples were taken from five sampling stations (Al-Adaim-1, Al-Adaim-11, Um El-Nia'j, Al-Soudah, Al-Baida).

Mean of concentrations of metals in the sediments ranged from 1365 to 3735 for Fe, 4.50 to 10.50 for Zn, 4.15 to 8.15 for Cu and 6.00 to 7.70 mgkg-1 for Pb .

The degree of contamination in the sediments has been evaluated using Enrichment factor (EF)m, Geoaccumulation index (Igeo), Contamination factor (CF) and pollution load index (PLI) .

EF indicates that Fe, Zn, Cu and Pb in sediments ranged from depletion to significantly enrichment while at station 1 Pb are very highly enriched.

Igeo values showed that the sediments were background contamination (Igeo < 1) for all stations.

CF also show that the sediments have low contamination (CF < 1) .PLI of the studied area ranged from 0.107 to 0.163 which indicated that the Marsh sediments were unpolluted (PLI = 0-1).