Distribution of Heavy Metals in the Bottom Sediments of the Arabian Gulf, United Arab Emirates

Thirty two bottom sediment samples were collected from four different areas from Arabian Gulf, United Arab Emirates. These areas include: (a) Dubai, (b) Sharjah, (c) Ajman, and (d) Ras Al-Khaimah. The present study focuses on the levels of copper, lead, iron, manganese nickel, cadmium, zinc and vanadium in order to assess the extent of environmental pollution and to discuss the origin of these contaminants in sediments. Positive correlations are found between increase of heavy metals concentration and decrease of grain size. It is well established that heavy metals tend to be concentrated in the finer grain sizes of bottom sediments of the studied areas. Some large size grain sediments show high heavy metals concentrations due to formation of large agglomerates from the smaller particles enriched by contaminations. The concentrations of copper, zinc, lead, iron, manganese, nickel, cadmium, and vanadium are varied between 5.05, 10.15, 2.82, 3230, 119.0, 16.92, 0.105, and 11.04 mu g/g, respectively, which are within the permission levels. This means that the samples containing these metals were derived from non-pollutant sources.