I am working on heavy metal pollution in water bodies and particularly concerned with surface water and the fauna. Therefore, I want to know if these two factors will be applicable in water studies as I am not at all concerned with the sediments. If yes, then what will be the pre-industrial reference values for water ?
There will be no pre-industrial direct measurements of metals at your site and therefore no reference values. In certain cases sediments can be used as archives of pollution and can be used to indirectly measure past events such as atmospheric fluxes.
Contamination factor would be a ratio between your measurements with the officially permitted levels. Enrichment factor would be a ratio of your measurements and levels of metals occurring in the water of non-contaminated areas.
non contaminated areas means control water body? I think that control water body is the one which have within range or below permitted levels of metal values. or i just take any water body which have low metal concentrations than mine?
I think, if you really need a control water body, you can evaluate the pollution sources and take a waterbody with no anthropogenic pollution sources (if you have a waterbody like this). But don't forget the atmospheric deposition of metals (transboundary pollution).
Not really a 'control', since all water bodies are no longer 'natural', even those in the high arctic. I am not familiar with enrichment factor being used to describe water quality. If I was comparing water quality site to site I would use specific examples to show the range of concentrations of chemicals that are usually found.
This is a great reference for this purpose, it contains a chart of average concentrations of inorganic and organic chemicals found around the world:
Artiola, J.F., Pepper, I.L., and Brusseau, M. (2004) Environmental Monitoring and Characterization. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Enrichment factor (EF) is used routinely for sediment analysis to show how many more time the more recent deposits are contaminated versus the pre-industrial level.
You can determination relationship between accumulation of heavy metals with size of fish for example with long, weight and condition factor. Some study shown that accumulation of heavy metals have some significantly relationship with fish body size .
Dear Ardavan, can you reccomend some publications about condition factor of a fish and accumulation of heavy metals?
Dear Galina,
Anna Farkas,János Salánki, András Specziár. 2003. Age- and size-specific patterns of heavy metals in the organs of freshwater fish Abramis brama L. populating a low-contaminated site. Water Research.
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Lieven Bervoets,Ronny Blust. 2003. Metal concentrations in water, sediment and gudgeon (Gobio gobio) from a pollution gradient: relationship with fish condition factor. Environmental Pollution
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M. Naeem*, A. Salam, S. S. Tahir1 and N. Rauf . The Effect of Fish Size and Condition on the Contents of Twelve Essential and Non Essential Elements in Aristichthys nobilis. Pakistan Veterinary Journal. ISSN: 0253-8318 (PRINT), 2074-7764 (ONLINE).
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J. Imanpour Namin1*, M. Mohammadi2, S. Heydari1, F. Monsef Rad1. 2011. Heavy metals Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb in tissue, liver of Esox lucius and sediment from the Anzali international lagoon- Iran. Caspian J. Env. Sci. 2011, Vol. 9 No.1 pp. 1~8
©Copyright by The University of Guilan, Printed in I.R. Iran
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Nsikak U. Benson1,*, Joseph P. Essien2, Akan B. Williams1 and David E. Bassey. 2007. Mercury accumulation in fishes from tropical aquatic ecosystems in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. RESEARCH ARTICLES CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 92, NO. 6, 25 MARCH 2007 781 *For correspondence. (e-mail: [email protected])
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T. S. Imam*1, U. Bala2, M. L. Balarabe3 and T. I. Oyeyi1. 2010. Length-weight relationship and condition factor of four fish species from Wasai Reservoir in Kano, Nigeria. African Journal of General Agriculture 1595-6984/2010 $12.00 + 0.00 Vol. 6, No. 3, September 30, 2010 2010 African Studies on Population and Health Printed in Nigeria http://www.asopah.org AJGA 2010061/6304
Dear Ardavan, thank you very much! It would be really interesting to read these articles!
Its important for you to know that you'll need toxicity reference values (TRV) for your contaminant of interest to be able to compute the ecological risk factor.
Since your interest is in water, your pre-industrial reference values will be a documented permissible limit but it will have to be specific for either humans or aquatic life.
if you want more work on these heavy metals so i am expert of all geostatistcal and bio-statistical analysis. contact on my personal email i will help you.
You can refer to Hakanson (1958), on table 12 there are natural background values for metals in freshwater which you could use as your background values against which you will calculate your contamination factor and subsequently ecological risk index. Hope this helps
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