International Journal of Marine Science, 2017, Vol.7, No.1, 1-7
1
Research Report Open Access
Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon in Selected Fish of Shatt Al-Arab River, Iraq
Al-Saad H.T.
1
, Al-Ali B.S.
2
, Al-Anber L.J.
2
, Al-Khion D.D.
2
, Hantoush A.A.
2
, Saleh S.M.
2
, Alaial A.H.
2
1 College of Marine Science, University of Basrah, Iraq
2 Department of Marine Environmental Chemistry- Marine Science Center, University of Basrah, Iraq
Corresponding author email
International Journal of Marine Science, 2017, Vol.7, No. 1 doi
Received: 8 Dec., 2016
Accepted: 9 Dec., 2016
Published: 10 Jan., 2017
Copyright © 2017
Al-Saad et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article
:
Al-Saad H.T., Al-Ali B.S., Al-Anber L.J., Al-Khion D.D., Hantoush A.A., Saleh S.M., and Aleal A.H., 2017, Total petroleum hydrocarbon in selected fish of
Shatt Al-Arab River, Iraq, International Journal of Marine Science, 7(1): 1-7 (doi
Abstract
This study represents the concentrations of TPH in six commercial
Luciobarbus
xanthopterus
,
Ctenophyngodon
idella
,
Cyprinus carpio
,
Tilapia zillii
,
Palaniza
abu
and
Leuciscus vorax
from Shatt Al-Arab River. The highest concentrations of TPH were
found in
Leuciscus vorax
in during Summer 21.52±3.41 μg/g (dry wt.) and the lowest in
Tilapia zillii
2.47±0.33 μg/g (dry wt.), while
highest concentrations during winter found in
Cyprinus
carpio
8.2±1.0 μg/g (dry wt.), which is more than other fishes and the low
concentration 0.33 μg were found in
Tilapia zillii
with level of 2.47±/g (dry wt.).
The concentration in fish samples ordering as the
following:
Luciscus
vorax > Cyprinus carpio > Ctenophyngodon
idella >
Luciobarbus
xanthopterus > Palaniza
abu > Tilapia zillii
.
This is may be due to the variety of fish feeding habitat and the season of reproduction , also the hydrocarbons found in the fish species
of Shatt Al-Arab river are due to food and water sources, type of habitat, environmental factors, and lipid content
.
Keywords
Total petroleum hydrocarbons; Fishes; Shatt AL-Arab; Iraq
Introduction
The Iraqi freshwater environment, suffered from various types of pollution especially that related to pesticides,
hydrocarbons or heavy metal toxicants. The numerous of oil exploration and exploitation activities in economies
that produce and consume oil products to appear crude oil pollution as a natural consequence (Osuagwu et al.,
2013).
Hydrocarbons are a common and natural occurrence in the environment and varying concentrations in storm water
and effluent water are not unusual. Hydrocarbons in water can be found as free floating, emulsified, dissolved, or
adsorbed to suspended solids. A hydrocarbon, by definition, is one of a group of chemical compounds composed
only of hydrogen and carbon. Typically, hydrocarbons are broken down into three main classes; aliphatic, alicyclic,
and aromatics. Further sub-classes can also be defined. Simply stated though, hydrocarbons are organic
compounds made up of hydrogen and carbon (Reeves, 2000).
Petroleum hydrocarbons (PHCs) originally from oil and its derivatives existing either naturally from seepage of
crude oil (Klenkin et al., 2010), or anthrapoginically as a result of human being activities (Heras et al., 1992;
Al-Hejuje et al., 2015). This anthrapoginically pollution is due mainly to accidental discharge human error,
sabotage, transportation and other natural causes. there is a significant spillage of oil into the environment from a
number of sources including damaged oil tankers, storage vehicles, leakages of oil pipelines, oil tankers overflow
(Agbogidi, 2005; Osuagwu et al., 2013).
The diffusion of pollutants (pesticides, petroleum oils and trace elements and other pollutants) in the aquatic
environment specially rivers can cause deleterious effects on biota, effects which are not visible and may come to
light after a long period of time (Sharma and Cyril, 2007).
There is a potential environmental risk of spills when using these materials, contaminated water may present
opportunities for research on the effects of PHCs on existing aquatic organisms such as zooplankton. Other
sources of pollution by PHC’s arise from the different types of waste and sewage (Heras et al., 1992).
