Investigation and analysis of heavy metal concentrations and sediment pollution indices in Hendijan dust hotspot, Khuzestan Province

Hendijan wind erosion center is located in Khuzestan Province and southwest of Iran. In the last decade, with the increase of erosion rate and concentration of important dust centers in this area, the study of heavy metal concentration and pollution in this area has become very important. For this purpose, 33 soil samples of this zone were collected based on land use change and with the aim of uniform distribution and analyzed by ICP-MSS. The obtained data show that the highest average concentrations of metals belong to Cd <As <Cu <Pb <Zn <Ni <Cr, respectively. Enrichment indices, geo-accumulation index and contaminant factor showed that the highest pollution in Hindijan area belongs to nickel, chromium, arsenic, cadmium and plumbum, respectively. On the other hand, ecological risk assessment in the mentioned area has shown that this region has a low ecological risk that among the studied metals, the highest ecological risk belongs to the two metals arsenic and cadmium. The results of PCA test showed that the metals nickel, zinc, copper and lead have both non-anthropogenic and anthropogenic sources and the source of arsenic and cadmium metals is human activities. According to the pattern of metal distribution, it can be stated that the activities related to Bahrkan fishing pier on the one hand and oil rigs off the coast of Hindijan oil field on the other hand have caused the concentration of nickel, lead, zinc and copper in the south of the study area. Agricultural activities have also controlled the concentration of cadmium and arsenic metals in this area, and the source of chromium concentration was determined as agricultural effluents, traffic pollution and residual pollution from the 8-year Iraq-Iran war.