Persistent organic pollutants in coastal and mangrove surface sediments of Hormozgan Province

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are among chemicals with long life-time and undesirable environmental effects. They are considerable regarding to their accumulation ability in marine food web. Hormozgan Province, especially Bandar Abbas City, is facing to high industrial and urban development rate that could result to release of semi or un-treatment wastewater to coastal waters. In present study, the distribution of poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and poly-chloro biphenyls (PCBs) in surface sediments from costal and mangrove of Hormozgan Province have been reviewed. It is apparent that the industrial waste waters has the dominate role over urban activities for releasing the PAHs and PCBs in Hormozgan marine ecosystem. Distribution pattern of PAHs shows that in coastal sediments, the pyrogenic and petrogenic have the comparable role whereas, the pyrogenic sources predominate in mangrove sediments. In distribution pattern of PCBs, the most abundance is attributed to heavy congeners such as 153.

Keywords:

PAHs , PCBs , Sediments , Hormozgan province , Persian Gulf , Oman Sea