Potentially toxic elements in sediments near mines—a comprehensive approach for the assessment of pollution status and associated risk for the surface water environment

Sakan, Sanja; Mihajlidi-Zelić, Aleksandra; Sakan, Nenad; Frančišković-Bilinski, Stanislav; Kodranov, Igor; Đorđević, Dragana (2024) Potentially toxic elements in sediments near mines—a comprehensive approach for the assessment of pollution status and associated risk for the surface water environment. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 31 (11). pp. 16613-16628. ISSN 1614-7499

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Abstract

This research is focused on the assessment of the pollution status of river and lake sediments near Pb, Zn, and Cu mines and tailings in the southeastern part of Serbia-Krajiste area. The study is based on hypothesis that investigated rivers and lakes in the Krajiste area could be polluted by potentially toxic elements (PTEs) and that these elements could pose considerable ecological risk to the studied surface water environment. High PTE contents are detected in studied river sediments (up to 7892 mg kg-1 for Zn, 3224 mg kg-1 for Cu, 36,790 mg kg-1 for Pb, 64.2 mg kg-1 for Cd, and 1444 mg kg-1 for As). Given that the contents of the studied elements in most of the river sediments exceeded the background values, values prescribed by regulations of the Republic of Serbia, as well as probable effect concentration (PEL), it is possible to conclude that sediments were heavily polluted and that detrimental effects can be expected. Contamination indices including the enrichment factor (EF), contamination factor (CF), index of geoaccumulation (Igeo), potential ecological risk index (Eri), ecological risk index (RI), pollution load index (PLI), and aggregative toxicity index (ATI) were used to assess the degree of pollution by PTEs. The ecological risk assessment revealed that there is a significant risk observed for toxic elements (primarily Pb, Cu, Cd, and As) at this moment. The highest contamination indices (EF, Igeo, CF, PLI, and ATI) are mainly associated with historical and current mining activities. The Monte Carlo analysis based on the risk assessment indices was used to evaluate the uncertainty. The most pronounced toxic risk is found for the Pb, Cu, Cd, and As which assessment was in the range of high and extremely high-risk probabilities. The obtained results suggest that levels of toxic elements pose a significant ecological risk to the surface water environment near Pb, Zn, and Cu mines in the Krajiste area. The methodology applied in this paper could be very useful for other researchers dealing with the problem of environmental pollution by toxic elements.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	mining activities; toxic elements; magnetic susceptibility; contamination indices; Monte Carlo simulation; river sediments
Subjects:	NATURAL SCIENCES > Geology NATURAL SCIENCES > Chemistry NATURAL SCIENCES > Geophysics INTERDISCIPLINARY AREAS OF KNOWLEDGE
Divisions:	Division for Marine and Enviromental Research
Depositing User:	Stanislav Frančišković-Bilinski
Date Deposited:	07 Nov 2024 13:15
URI:	http://fulir.irb.hr/id/eprint/9258
DOI:	10.1007/s11356-024-32178-4

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