Assessment of Heavy Metals Pollution in Sediments of the Korbevačka River in Southeastern Serbia

Abstract

The Korbevačka River is located in the southeastern part of Serbia. This river is a main recipient of all kinds of pollutants from the Pb−Zn mine “Grot.” Sediments from the Korbevačka River were studied to determine the distribution of the metals along the river, assess the quality of sediment, and find the degree of contamination. The concentration of iron, manganese, nickel, copper, zinc, cadmium, lead, mercury, arsenic, chromium, and barium were determined. River sediments were collected and analyzed for heavy metal concentration using atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The degree of pollution in the sediments of the Korbevačka River has been evaluated based on Canadian sediment quality guidelines, enrichment factor (EF), geo-accumulation index (I_geo) and pollution load index (PLI). Inter-metal associations have been evaluated by Pearson correlation coefficients (r). The results indicated that: (1) sediments have been polluted with Pb, Cd, Zn, and Cu and have high anthropogenic influences; (2) the calculation of geo-accumulation index suggests that the Korbevačka River sediments have background concentrations of Fe, Cr, and Ni (I_geo < 1); (3) the co-precipitation (inclusion, occlusion, and adsorption) of heavy metals (except As and Ba) with Mn and Fe geochemical phases.

Keywords:

• Assessment
• heavy metals
• Korbevačka River
• pollution
• sediment

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Science for the research grant under project III-43014 that was partly used for these investigations.