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Composition of deposited sediment and its temporal variation in a disturbed tropical catchment in the Kelantan river basin, Peninsular Malaysia

  • Circular Economy for Global Water Security
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Abstract

Pristine tropical river systems are coming under increasing pressure from the development of economic resources such as forestry and mining for valuable elements. The Lebir catchment, north eastern Malaysia, is now under development as a result of unregulated tree felling and mining for essential and rare metals. Two sediment cores, one in the upstream reaches and the other from the downstream reaches, were taken from flood prone area of the Lebir River, Malaysia, and analysed for their elemental composition by XRF, specifically Al, Si, Fe, Ca, K, Mg, Mn, V, Cu, Ni, Pb, Cr, Zn, As, Th and U. Activities of fallout radionuclides, 137Cs and 210Pb were also determined to from a geochronological context. The elemental concentrations in the soils were assessed in terms of their enrichment factor and Si, Ca, K, Mg, Mn, V, Cu, Ni and Zn were found not to be enriched, whereas As, Th and U had elevated enrichment factors. The Th and U were particularly enriched in the downstream core indicating inputs from a tributary that drains a catchment with known deposits of Th and possibly U. The results suggest that the growth in economic development is fostering the transport of contaminants by the major rivers which, in turn, is contaminating the riverine floodplains. This points to the need for a more integrated and holistic approach to river basin management to maintain the environmental quality of these fragile aquatic systems.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to the protection of confidential information but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to the Rasmussen Foundation Funds, United States (Vote No: R.J130000.7322.4B243) for funding this project. We would also like to thank all of the supportive research personnel and laboratory technicians, especially Dr. Andrew Fisher, Mr. Richard Hartley and Mr. Fuaad bin Omar, for their assistance and guidance on the laboratory activities. The authors would also like to acknowledge the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC), United Kingdom for the mobility grant and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia for the Zamalah scholarship awarded to the researcher involved in the project. All the radiological analyses were performed in the ISO9001.2018 accredited Consolidated Radio-isotope Facility at the University of Plymouth.

Funding

This work was supported by the Rasmussen Foundation Funds, United Stated under project Vot No: R.J130000.7322.4B243.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Water and Environmental Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia

    Dhinesh Sugumaran, Zulkifli Yusop, Nur Athirah Mohamad & Kogila Vani Annammala

  2. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, UK

    Dhinesh Sugumaran, William H. Blake & Geoffrey E. Millward

  3. Centre of Environmental Sustainability & Water Security (IPASA), Research Institute for Sustainable Environment (RISE), Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia

    Zulkifli Yusop & Kogila Vani Annammala

  4. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor, Malaysia

    Abdull Rahim Mohd Yusoff

  5. Faculty of Tropical Forestry, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Sabah, Malaysia

    Anand Nainar

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  1. Dhinesh Sugumaran
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Contributions

DS: conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, software, validation, visualization, writing-original draft; WHB: conceptualization, methodology, software, investigation, resources, data curation, supervision, writing—review and editing; GM: data curation, investigation, methodology, validation, visualization, resources, writing—review and editing; ZY: investigation, resources, supervision; ARMY: investigation, resources, supervision; NAM: investigation, software; AN: formal analysis, writing—review and editing; KVA: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, data curation, validation, supervision, writing—review and editing, project administration.

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Correspondence to Kogila Vani Annammala.

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Sugumaran, D., Blake, W.H., Millward, G.E. et al. Composition of deposited sediment and its temporal variation in a disturbed tropical catchment in the Kelantan river basin, Peninsular Malaysia. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 71881–71896 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19904-6

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