Abstract
Concentrations of Al, Fe, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn in soils, sediments and water samples collected along the Oued Boufekrane river (Meknes, central Morocco) were determined. In soils, a homogeneous distribution of metal concentrations was observed throughout the study area except for Pb, which presents high enrichment at sites located at the vicinity of a main highway. In sediments, high enrichment, with respect to upstream sites, were observed downstream of the city of Meknes for Al, Cr, Fe and Ni and inside the city for Cu, Zn and Pb. In water samples, the metal contents showed to correlate with their homologues in sediments suggesting that the metal contents in water and sediments have identical origins. Descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis (principal factor method, PFM) were used to assist the interpretation of elemental data. This allowed the determination of the correlations between the metals and the identification of three main factor loadings controlling the metal variability in soils and sediments.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adriano, D.C.: 1986, Trace Elements in the Terrestrial Environment, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg.
Cave, M. and Reeder, S.: 1995, ‘Reconstitution of in-situ compositions obtained by aqueous leaching of drill core: An evaluation using multivariate statistical deconvolution’, Analyst 120, 1341–1351.
Everitt, B.S. and Dunn, G.: 1991, Applied Multivariate Data Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, New York.
Facchinelli, A., Sacchi, E. and Mallen, L.: 2001, ‘Multivariate statistical and GIS-based approach to identify heavy metal sources in soils’, Environ. Pollut. 114, 313–324.
Fernandez, H., Conti, L.F. and Patchineelam, S.R.: 1994, ‘An assessment of the pollution of heavy metals in Jacarepagua basin, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil: A statistical approach’, Environ. Technol. 15, 87–94.
Holtzman, N.A., Elliot, D.A. and Heller, R.H.: 1966, ‘Cooper intoxication’, New Engl. J. Med. 275, 347–352.
Lerman, A., Imboden, D. and Gat, J.: 1995, Physics and Chemistry of Lakes, New York.
Monga, S.L.: 1993, Statistique: Concepts et Méthodes, Masson éditeur, Montréal, Canada, pp. 72–73.
Nolte, J.: 1988, ‘Pollution source analysis of river water and sewage sludge’, Environ. Technol. Lett. 9, 857–868.
Nriagu, J.O.: 1990, ‘Global metal pollution—poisoning the biosphere’, Environment 32, 7–32.
Nriagu, J.O. and Pacyna, J.M.: 1988, ‘Quantitative assessment of world-wide contamination of air, water and soils by trace metals’, Nature 333, 134–139.
Tessier, A., Campbell, P.G.C. and Bisson, M.: 1979, ‘Sequential extraction procedure for the speciation of particulate trace metals’, Anal. Chem. 51, 844–851.
Tessier, A., Campbell, P.G.C., Auclair, J.C. and Bisson, M.: 1984, ‘Relationship between the partitioning of trace metals in sediments and their accumulation in the tissues of freshwater mollusk Elliptio complanata in mining area’, Can. J. Fish Aquat. Sci. 41, 1463–1472.
Villaescusa-Celaya, J.A., Gutierrez-Galendo, E.A. and Flores-Moñoz, G.: 2000, ‘Heavy metals in the fine fraction of coastal sediments from Baja California (Mexico) and California (USA)’, Environ. Pollut. 108, 453–462.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tahri, M., Benyaïch, F., Bounakhla, M. et al. Multivariate analysis of heavy metal contents in soils, sediments and water in the region of Meknes (central Morocco). Environ Monit Assess 102, 405–417 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-005-6572-7
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-005-6572-7