Khalid M. El-Moselhy¹ , Lamiaa I. Mohamadein¹ , Eman M. Saad² , Reda F. El-Shaarway² , Safaa A. Mahmoud²

1. Marine Pollution Lab, National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, Egypt
2. Chemistry Dept., Faculty of Science, Suez University, Egypt
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 26   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2016.06.0026
Received: 18 Jun., 2016    Accepted: 08 Aug., 2016    Published: 22 Aug., 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.

El-Moselhy K.M., Saad E.M., El-Shaarway R.F., Mohamadein L.I., and Mahmoud S.A., 2016, Assessment of Heavy Metals Pollution using Sediments and Bivalve Brachidontes variabilis as Bioindicator in the Gulf of Suez, Egypt, International Journal of Marine Science, 6(26): 1-12 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2016.06.0026)

The present work aimed to assess the quality of the coastal area of the Gulf of Suez by using sediments and bivalve Brachidontes variabilis to monitor heavy metal ions (Cd(II), Pb(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II)) at different stations along the western side of the gulf. The samples were collected twice per year (summer and winter) from seven stations representing different pollution sources. The concentration of studied heavy metal ions were determined using flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer. The results showed that the heavy metal ions levels  ranging from 1.34-2.60, 5.74-51.12, 3.37-57.91 and 14.69-95.96 µg/g (sediments) and 0.18-0.56, 0.53-2.54, 2.11-4.38 and 8.12-17.04 µg/g (B. variabilis) for Cd(II), Pb(II), Cu(II) and Zn(II) ions, respectively. In summer season, the high values of the most studied metals were showed, with significant difference (p < 0.05) for Pb only. The indices such as contamination factor (CF), pollution load index (PLI) and metal pollution index (MPI) were estimated in sediments and bivalve species to assess the degree of contamination from heavy metals at the different investigated stations. The obtained data indicated that the present study area was varied between low and moderate contamination with progressive decline in the quality of the investigated sites.

Heavy Metals; Sediments; Brachidontes variabilis; Gulf of Suez; Pollution indices; Bioindicator