Metal Pollution in Surface Sediments of the Golden Horn Estuary (Marmara Sea, Turkey) after the Remedial Actions

Abstract

The present study investigated the metal pollution of the surface sediment samples from the Golden Horn Estuary in Istanbul. It has connection with the Marmara Sea directly and with the Black Sea via Bosphorus and was polluted by different kinds of industrial plants until 1999. In addition to this, municipal wastewater of around one million people has been discharged into this receiving media. Greater part of the estuary was almost blocked off by sediment islands. Extensive effort was spent to dredge out sediment in 1999. This created quite a convenient condition for aquatic medium in the estuary. In this study, metal pollution of sediment was investigated to get clue about water quality of the estuary after the remedial actions. For this purpose, surface sediment samples were collected for a single time at six stations along the estuary in 2007. Contents of Hg, Al, Fe, Cr, Mn, Pb, Cu, Cd, CaCO3, Corg were measured in surface sediments of the estuary. The metal values were also evaluated according to the enrichment factors (EF's).