Metals pollution assessment in water and sediment of El-Sharkawia Canal, River Nile, Egypt

M.H. Abdo^1*, M. E. Goher¹, A. S. Amin² and A.A. El-Degwy¹

¹National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (NIOF)

²Faculty of Science,Benha University.

*Corresponding author, Email: mh_omr@yahoo.com

Summary: El-Sharkawia canal is an irrigation canal located at El-Qualubiagovernorate and receiving water directly from River Nile. 40 water and 36 sediment samples were collected to covering the canal. Nine heavy metals; Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Ni, Co, Cr, Pb and Cd were assessed in water and sediment samples. The concentration levels of the measured metals in water samples were found to be Fe; 125.80-1478.47, Mn; 1.80-119.00, Zn; 1.60-40.40, Cu; 0.60-4.12, Ni; 1.75-20.20, Co; 0.80-13.60, Cr; 5.20-25.20, Pb; 3.40-32.60 and Cd; ND-1.21 µg/l. On the other hand, in the sediment samples they varied in the ranges; 11.20-30.64 mg/g, 152.02-677.11, 50.20-248.53, 20.90-111.11, 23.40-128.22, 0.30-27.00, 11.70-90.60, 6.00-102.10and ND-0.88 µg/g for Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Ni, Co, Cr, Pb and Cd, respectively. The concentrations of Zn, Cu, Co, Cr and Cd in water were within the permissible limits, but that of Fe, Mn, Ni and Pb were higher than the permissible limits. For sediment, the most metals were within the permissible limits except for Ni and Cu. The geo-accumulation index (Igeo) suggested "unpolluted to moderate pollution" for all studied metals (Igeo<1)and there is no spatial significant difference for most of the measured metals according to ANOVA.