International Journal of Marine Science, 2017, Vol.7, No.23, 214-228
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The overall multivariate analyses showed two major patterns. The first pattern suggested that the metals Fe, Mn
and partially Cd were originated from the trrigenous sources and were negatively correlated with carbonate, this
mainly due to phosphate ores sedimentation and coastal activities. Previous work in many locations of Red Sea
area showed high levels of these metals (Fe, Mn and Cd) associated with terrestrial inputs (e.g., Mansour et al.,
2011; Madkour et al., 2012; El-Metwally, 2015; Dar et al., 2016a; 2016b; El-Metwally et al., 2017). The second
pattern showed that high portion of Cu, Zn and Pb that mostly have anthropogenic sources since the highest
impacts were observed at Hurghada shipyard.
2.4 Assessment the ecological risk
Metal pollution load index (MPI) is a simple method to describe the integrated effect of metal contamination. The
values (>1) indicate to the progressive deterioration in sediments quality (El-Said and Youssef, 2013). MPI was
obtained from the following formula:
MPI = (CF
Co
x CF
Cu
x CF
Zn
x CF
Ni
x CF
Cd
x CF
Mn
x CF
Pb
x CF
Fe
)
1/n
Where, the contamination factor (CF) is the concentration of metal in obtained sample (Cmetal) divided by the
background concentration (Cbackground) of the same metal and (n) is the number of measured metals. The
calculated values of MPI were ranged between 1.08 and 1.50 (Table 4). The highest MPI values were found in
Hurghada stations (1.11 to 1.50) followed by Qusier (Table 4) and the lowest MPI values (1.08 to 1.22) were at
Safaga stations. Similar pattern for MPI was recorded by Salem et al. (2014) at Qusier and Safaga.
The enrichment factor (EF) represents the actual contamination level in sediments since it is probably
differentiates between natural and anthropogenic sources of metals (Chen et al., 2007; Amin et al., 2009). EF was
calculated from the equation:
=
(
)
(
)
The calculated averages of EF showed that the heavy metals were followed the enrichment order; Pb>>Cu
≥
Zn>Cd>Mn=Ni>Co. Zhang and Liu (2002) reported that the lowest values (EF<1.5) indicating to natural sources
of heavy metals (crustal materials) and the highest values (EF>1.5) indicating to the significant anthropogenic
sources. In general, the calculated EF values illustrated moderate enrichment for Cu (2.45), Zn (2.37), Ni (2.03),
Cd (2.23) and Mn (2.04), meanwhile Pb was highly enriched (6.89). With respect to the studied stations, Hurghada
shipyard and tourist marina showed high EF enrichment by Cu (6.43 to 8.76), Zn (3.99 to 8.22), and Pb (10.03 to
25.15) attributed to anthropogenic sources from ships repairing, antifouling paints and fuels leakage as well as
boats mooring. The studied stations at Safaga and Qusier were enriched by Mn (1.99 to 4.06) and partially Cd
(1.55 to 5.2) due to the different shipment operations (Table 5).
Table 4 Geo-accumulation indices (I
geo
) for sediment samples at the different stations of the studied ports
Stations
Co
Cu
Zn
Ni
Cd
Mn
Pb
Fe
H-I
-12.13
-0.02
0.25
-0.46
1.39
-1.72
2.01
-1.31
H-II
-7.07
2.56
2.47
0.73
-6.91
-1.87
4.08
-0.56
H-III
-1.08
0.79
0.52
1.03
-4.36
-2.10
1.01
-0.21
H-IV
-2.37
0.03
-0.65
-0.15
-2.17
-2.91
1.14
-2.65
S-I
-0.88
0.56
0.57
0.09
-0.08
0.02
1.26
0.42
S-II
-1.01
0.40
0.56
0.28
0.50
0.71
1.08
0.12
S-III
-0.46
0.05
1.54
0.29
1.43
0.58
1.41
-0.05
S-IV
-0.26
-0.07
-0.74
0.24
0.50
-0.14
1.35
-0.13
S-V
-0.21
-0.27
-1.32
0.05
0.77
-0.32
1.84
-0.49
Q-I
-0.02
-0.16
-0.28
0.84
2.27
0.17
2.59
-0.11
Q-II
0.21
-0.19
0.99
1.45
1.72
0.12
2.14
0.32
