Environmental and ecological risk evaluation of heavy metals in surface sediments of the CheshmeKile River, Mazandaran

Heavy metals contaminations are readily bioaccumulated in aquatic systems and lead to increased concentrations in food chains, posing a serious threat to human health, water-related organisms and aquatic ecosystems. The purpose of the present study was to determine the concentration of heavy metals in surface sediments of CheshmehKile River, to evaluate environmental and ecological risk and to determine the degree of contamination of the elements studied. In this study, 25 samples of surface sediment were collected from the CheshmehKile River. The heavy metals content of the samples was measured by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry. According to the content of heavy metals in sediment samples, environmental and ecological risk indices were calculated. Also, river contamination was evaluated by comparing the elements studied values with the sediment quality guidelines values. The mean concentration of chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, zinc and arsenic were 41.27, 356.35, 16756.32, 9.17, 11.87, 41.24 and 24.60 µg/g, respectively. Based on the values of the CF and Igeo indices, all of the elements, with the exception of arsenic, showed a low degree of contamination. The indices of Eir and RI also showed the lowest ecological risk at all stations. The results of this study showed that the surface sediments of CheshmeKile River in Mazandaran province were somewhat contaminated with arsenic. However, fortunately, the river sediments were of good quality from the point of view of the content of chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel and zinc.