Sediments as monitors of heavy metal contamination in the Ave river basin (Portugal): multivariate analysis of data

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 1999

Authors

Soares, HMVM (Author) FEUP; Boaventura, RAR (Author) FEUP; Machado, AASC (Author) FCUP; da Silva, JCGE (Author) FCUP

Journal

Title: Environmental Pollution

Vol. 105

Pages: 311-323

ISSN: 0269-7491

Publisher: Elsevier

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 254 Citations

ISI Web of Science

Scopus - 297 Citations

COMPENDEX

Scientific classification

FOS: Natural sciences > Earth and related Environmental sciences

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-001-5JW

DOI: 10.1016/s0269-7491(99)00048-2

Abstract (EN): The concentrations of heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn) were determined in river sediments collected at the Ave river basin (Portugal) to obtain a general classification scenery of the pollution in this highly polluted region. Multivariate data analysis techniques of clustering, principal components and eigenvector projections were used in this classification. Five general areas with different polluting characteristics were detected and several individual heavy metal concentration abnormalities were detected in restricted areas. A good correlation between the overall metal contamination determined by multivariate analysis and metal pollution indexes for all sampling stations was obtained. Some preliminary experiments showed that the metal concentrations normalised to the volatile matter content in the sediment fraction with grain size < 63 mu m seems to be an adequate method for assessing metal pollution.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 13