Geographia Technica, Vol 14, Issue no.1/2019, pp. 65-81
ASSESSMENT OF METAL CONTAMINATION IN COASTAL SEDIMENTS OF THE LÉVRIER BAY AREA, ATLANTIC OCEAN, MAURITANIA
Mohamed El Houssein LEGRAA, Abdelkader MOHAMED SALECK, Ali YAHYA DARTIGE, Mohamed Lemine CHEIKH ZAMEL, Mohamed Mahmoud Ould ABIDINE, Hassan ERRAOUI, Zeinebou SIDOUMOU (Nouakchott, Mauritania & Tétouan, Morocco)
ABSTRACT: This work presents an assessment of marine pollution due to heavy metals accumulated in surface sediments collected from the Lévrier bay coastline in NW Atlantic, Mauritania. The samples were subjected to HCl and HNO3 digestion, and an atomic absorption spectrophotometer was used to determine the concentrations of all metals (Cd, Pb, Cu and Zn) with the exception of Hg that was analysed by DMA-80 Direct Mercury Analyzer. The ranking of the metals at all studied sites was Al>Zn > Cu >Pb> Cd>Hg, and all the sediments samples displayed lower concentrations than the calculated worldwide mean of unpolluted sediments. The data were classified according to seasons. . Eight common pollution indices (i.e. EF, Igeo, QoC(%), CF, SPI, PLI, Cd and PERI)were applied to ascertain the sediment quality. The enrichment (EF) factor resulting from Pb, Cu and Zn were
Keywords: Heavy metals, Pollution indexes, Sediments, Lévrier bay, Mauritania.
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