International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Musa estuary is surrounded by port, harbor, petrochemichal complex as well as urban areas and receives various types of contaminants such as heavy metals. It is considered as a habitat for Belonger’s croaker Johnius belangerii in the Persian Gulf. Due to its relatively low price, the fish is commonly consumed by the local people in Mahshahr and Sarbandar cities, while there is no available data on heavy metals accumulation by this species. This study was carried out to determine the concentration of five heavy metals in J. belangerii tissues. Fish samples were taken from five creeks and dissected into muscle, liver and gills. The tissues were acid digested and analyzed for their heavy metal contents. The concentration of Cd, Co, Cu, Ni and Pb was determined by flame atomic absorption spectrometer. Results showed that the highest level of Cd, Co, Cu, Ni and Pb was 7.21, 1.08, 1.12, 2.72 μg/g and 4.57 in liver , 1.88, 1.04, 2.09, 9.43 and 6.83 μg/g in gills and 0.14, ND, 5.61, 2.43 and 3.78 μg/g in muscle respectively. The level of heavy metals in muscle was lower than WHO standard, meanwhile the level of metals in fish were decreased by the increase of distance from PETZON. Biomonitoring of contaminants in Musa estuary could serve as a good estimate of environmental health.

Index Terms—Musa estuary, havy metals, Johnius belangerii, Persian Gulf.

A. Safahieh, F. Abdolahpur Monikh, M. T. Ronagh and A. Doraghi and with the Department of Marine Biology, Faculty of Marine Sciences and Oceanography, Khorramshahr University of Marine Science and Technology, Khorramshahr, Iran (email: a.Safahieh@Kmsu.ac.ir.)

[PDF]

Cite: Alireza safahieh, Fazel Abdolahpur Monikh, Mohammad Taghi Ronagh, Ahmad Savari, and Abdolmajid Doraghi, "Determination of heavy metals (Cd, Co, Cu, Ni and Pb) in croacker fish (Johnius belangerii) from Musa estuary in the Persian Gulf," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 460-464, 2011.