Potentially toxic elements contamination in surface sediment and indigenous aquatic macrophytes of the Bahmanshir River, Iran: Appraisal of phytoremediation capability
Graphical abstract
Introduction
Contamination of aquatic environments and fluvial ecosystems has become a public concern due to the non-degradability, accumulation, and toxicity of several potentially toxic elements (Li et al., 2019b). With rapid urbanization, industrialization, and increases in human populations, rivers receive large quantities of these elements which in turn degrade environmental quality (Setia et al., 2020). Among freshwater environments, rivers are the most susceptible to contamination. Potentially toxic elements in aquatic ecosystems can enter the food chain and accumulate in the blood, fatty tissues, hair, nails, and teeth of humans living along rivers, and ultimately cause diseases such as cancers. Potentially toxic elements are derived from natural sources including volcanoes and weathering of rocks, and from anthropogenic sources such as discharges of untreated municipal sewage, industrial emissions and effluents, traffic-related pollution, mining activities, and application of pesticides and inorganic fertilizers (Singh et al., 2017; Kumar et al., 2020a). These sources release potentially toxic elements into river water, resulting in elevating levels of bioaccumulation into aquatic organisms and degradation of water quality. In addition, these elements can be strongly sorbed to suspended sediments and rapidly deposited in bed sediments, causing detrimental effects on aquatic diversity. With changing pH, redox and temperature, these elements can be secondary contamination sources when they are released from sediments into the water column. Therefore, sediment can act as both sources and sinks of contaminants (Jia et al., 2018). Accordingly, bed sediments in aquatic environments relate to, and can be considered indicators of, the concentrations of contaminants in water. In this regard, indices for the assessment of sediment contamination, including Enrichment Factor (EF), Modified Pollution Index (MPI), Modified Ecological Risk (MRI), and, have been widely used to evaluate sediment contamination (Brady et al., 2015; Duodu et al., 2016; Pandey et al., 2019). In recent years, new indices for estimating contamination in river sediment have been developed. These include the Modified Hazard Quotient (mHQ), Ecological Contamination Index (ECI), Contamination Severity Index (CSI), and toxic risk index (TRI) (Pejman et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2016; Benson et al., 2018).
Potentially toxic elements can be taken up from water and sediment and accumulated in aquatic macrophytes acting as a filter, in a process called phytoremediation (Parihar et al., 2021). Evaluation of potentially toxic element uptake in macrophytes can be an important tool for monitoring the levels of contamination in aquatic ecosystems and their bioaccumulation ability. Phytoremediation or ‘green purification’ can be considered as a cost-effective and environmentally friendly technology method in aquatic ecosystems. Typha latifolia L. (also known as Cattail) belongs to the Typhaceae family, and is a high-biomass aquatic macrophyte with a high capacity for taking up potentially toxic elements grown under various climatic conditions, especially in tropic and warm regions (Sasmaz et al., 2008; Varun et al., 2011). Typha latifolia L. accumulates potentially toxic elements in its tissues without serious physiological damage and can be considered a good candidate for evaluating the potential of phytoremediation (Klink et al., 2013).
River contamination associated with potentially toxic elements is an important problem globally and specifically in Iran due to rapid urbanization and industrialization. The Bahmanshir River is one of the major waterways located in Abadan City, Khuzestan Province, Iran, and is one of the tributaries of the Karoon River. Discharges of large amounts of untreated agricultural and industrial effluents and municipal sewages of Ahvaz and Abadan Cities have contaminated the Bahmanshir River with a range of potentially toxic elements (Haghnazar et al., 2021). Oil refinery and petrochemical emissions and effluents in Abadan City have also been suggested to be responsible for the deterioration of the quality of this river. Typha latifolia L. is an indigenous aquatic macrophyte and dominant plant growing along the Bahmanshir River, and therefore it may be a candidate for phytoremediation in the study area. The present study aims to evaluate the capability of Typha latifolia L. for remediation of the sediment contamination caused by potentially toxic elements. The main objectives were to 1) determine the concentration of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn in surface sediments and Typha latifolia L., 2) evaluate contaminant concentrations based on relevant indices, and 3) identify the main sources of contamination and their relative contributions using correlation analysis, principal component analysis (PCA), and multiple linear regression (MLR). The Bahmanshir River was used as the study site as it is representative of anthropogenically-impacted rivers in Iran.
Section snippets
Study area
The Bahmanshir River is located adjacent to Abadan City, a major industrial city of Khuzestan Province, south-west Iran, with 347,000 inhabitants in 2016. The river (30°25′53.52″N ~ 29°59′42.71″N and 48°43′13.16″E ~ 48°12′37.38″E) is a tributary of the Karoon River with a length of approximately 83 km, and it also receives drainage from the upstream part of the Karoon River via a canal (Fig. 1). It flows through Abadan City to the Persian Gulf. The basin has an arid climate with a very hot
Concentration of potentially toxic elements in the surface sediments
Descriptive statistical data of the sediments, together with average concentrations of the potentially toxic elements for upper continental crust (UCC) (Hu and Gao, 2008 and Taylor and McLennan, 1995) and local background values (Mokhtarzadeh et al., 2020), are summarized in Table 1. Mean concentrations decreased in the order Mn > Cr > Zn > Cu > Ni > Pb > As > Cd. Mean values of As and Mn were lower than those in the UCC, but mean concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn were 3.7, 1.5, 3.2,
Conclusion
Contamination of surface sediment of the Bahmanshir River in south-west Iran, and the phytoremediation capability of Typha latifolia L. grown in this sediment, were investigated. Mean concentrations of As, Mn, and Ni in the river sediment were less than their respective local background concentrations, while mean concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, and Zn exceeded their respective local background concentrations. High concentrations of Cd, Cr, Ni, and Zn in the middle part of the river were
Author contributions
Hamed Haghnazar: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Writing - Original Draft, Visualization.
Karen A. Hudson-Edwards: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - Review & Editing, Supervision.
Vinod Kumar: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - Review & Editing, Visualization.
Mojtaba Pourakbar: Resources, Investigation Writing - Original Draft, Project administration.
Mostafa Mahdavianpour: Resources, Investigation, Writing - Review & Editing.
Ehsan Aghayani: Project administration,
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledged funding from the Abadan University of Medical Science with project No. 99U893. We would like to thank for their time spent on reviewing our manuscript and their comments greatly improved the article.
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