Some heavy metal contents in surface water and sediment as a pollution index of El- Manzala Lake, Egypt

Goher, M. E.; Abdoa, M. H.; Bayoumy, W.A.; El-Ashkar, T. Y. Mansour

doi:10.21608/jbes.2017.369652

Some heavy metal contents in surface water and sediment as a pollution index of El- Manzala Lake, Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ National Institute of Oceanography & Fisheries, Environmental Chemistry, Cairo, Egypt

² National Institute of Oceanography & Fisheries, Environmental Chemistry, Cairo, Egypt.

³ Benha University, Faculty of Science, Chemistry Dept., Benha, Egypt

10.21608/jbes.2017.369652

Abstract

El-Manzala Lake is one of most important lake in north Delta of Egypt. It is exposed to huge amounts of serious pollutants
especially heavy metals. The main objective of this research was to evaluate the spatial distribution of the heavy metals in
water and sediment of the lake. Accordingly, Metal index (MI) and pollution index (PI) were calculated to assess the
contaminations of the lake water with the metals named Fe+2, Mn+2, Cu+2, Zn+2, Pb+2, and Cd+2. MI and PI values confirm that
most sites of aquatic utilizations are highly polluted with the mentioned metals. Four Pollution Indices were used for the
environmental assessment of Lake sediment. The indices included three single indices, Enrichment Factor (EF), Index of
Geo-accumulation (Igeo) and Contamination Factor (CF). While the fourth, Pollution Load Index (PLI) was an integrated
index. The pollution indexes confirmed that the Lake sediment was contaminated with these elements. This is attributed to
discharging of the effluents of different industrial wastes into the lake.

Keywords