Hamid T.Al-Saad¹ , Shaimaa T.Abed Ali² , Bassim Y.AlKafaji² , Sliah Mahdi¹

1 Department of Marine Chemistry, Marine Sciences Center University of Basrah, Iraq
2 Department of Biology, College of Sciences, University of Thi-Qar, Iraq
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 2   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2016.06.0002
Received: 07 Dec., 2015    Accepted: 19 Feb., 2016    Published: 22 Mar., 2016

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Al-Saad H.T., Ali S.T., Mahdi S, Alkafaji B.Y., and AL-Hello.A.., 2016, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) in Sediment Samples From Euphrates River, Iraq, International Journal of Marine Science, 6(2): 1-5 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2016.06.0002)

Sediment samples were collected from four selected sites along the Euphrates river near Al-Nassyira city south of Iraq during summer2012 to winter 2013, sixteen PAHs listed by USEPA as priority pollutants were detected.The total of PAHs was ranged from 0.197 ng/g dry weight in summer at station 1 to 80.006 ng/g dry weight in winter at station 3. The LMW/HMW, Flouranthene/Pyrene and Phenanthrene /Anthracene ratio indicated that the source of PAHs was pyrogenic Whereas BaA/(BaA+Chry) ratio indicated that the source of PAHs was pyrogenic and at least petrognic. The highest value TOC % were 1.91% at station 3 in winter while the lowest value were 0.73% at station 1 in summer. The study shows that there is a significant correlations between TOC%, grain size in the sediment with concentration of PAH. The present study indicated that hydrocarbons exist in the study area, but its levels were in acceptable range.

PAHs; Sediment; Euphrates River; Pollution