Effects of Anthropogenic Activities on the Elemental Concentration in Surface Sediment of Oxbows

Balogh, Zsuzsanna and Harangi, Sándor and Kundrát, János Tamás and Gyulai, István and Tóthmérész, Béla and Simon, Edina (2015) Effects of Anthropogenic Activities on the Elemental Concentration in Surface Sediment of Oxbows. WATER AIR AND SOIL POLLUTION, 227. pp. 13-21. ISSN 0049-6979

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Abstract

The Upper Tisza floodplain region provides a mosaic of aquatic habitats including a series of oxbows. Inorganic contaminants can accumulate in the sediment; thus, the sediment is good indicator of the contamination of these oxbows. Our aim was to explore the effects of anthropogenic activities on the concentration of ele- ments and also to study the influence of vegetation types on the element in surface sediment of oxbows. We studied eight oxbows: two of them were protected, four of them were used for fishing and two of them were contaminated with domestic sewage. The following el- ements were measured with MP-AES in surface sedi- ment: Al, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb and Zn. The elemental concentration was compared to the toxicity classes of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the as- sessment of the level of toxicity was based on this comparison. We found that studied oxbows were differ- ent from each other based on the elemental concentra- tions of sediment using canonical discriminant analysis and analysis of variance. Based on the elemental con- centration in surface sediment of oxbows, separation was also found among vegetation types. But significant difference was not found in the concentrations of ele- ments based on vegetation types. Our results demon- strated that the anthropogenic activities had remarkable effects on the elemental concentration of surface sedi- ment in oxbows. Our findings suggest that the sediment is useful to assess the effects of anthropogenic activities on elemental concentrations of oxbows.

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