Estimation of some heavy metals the concentrations in water and sediments of the Gharraf River - Thi Qar

Abstract

This study involved the estimation of the concentrations of four heavy metals: cadmium, copper, nickel and lead in water and sediment of AL-Gharraf river in the province of Thi-Qar, It was four stations were selected lies in the district of Qala'at Sikar and the second in the district of Al Rifai and the third in the distriet of Nasr. The fourth station is in the district of Shatra. The Samples were collected monthly for the period of October 2010 until September 2011, the heavy elements have extracted by standard methods by using a Flame Atomic Absorption. The means of the metals concentrations in water were Cd (7.23), Cu ( 7.65), Ni (216.6), pb, (52.9)μg / L respectively., While their concentrations in the sediment were 0.87 ,0.26, 67.5 and 24.4 μg /gm dry weight, respectively.This study has showed that the AL- Gharraf river contaminated element nickel and cadmium as it exceeded the concentration of each respective determinants of Iraq while the concentration of the copper without such limitations For to the element lead was comparable with, as has shown by the current study, the concentrations of nickel and copper in sediment was higher than recorded in the previous study and this is sufficient signal to contaminate the river with these elements.