ASSESSING SEDIMENT QUALITY OF ASSALUYEH AND BASSATIN ESTUARIES (NAYBAND BAY, BUSHEHR PROVINCE)

Estuaries are sensitive coastal environments to pollution where ecological features have controlled by quality of water and sediment sources. These environments are facing to contamination, shoaling, seasonal flash floods, storm surge, blockage of inlets, and anthropomorphic changes. Coastal sedimentary environments at the north of the Persian Gulf were affected since last two decades by rapid growth of industrial plants and land development projects ([1] [2]). Geochemical techniques have widely used for evaluation of natural and artificial issues at sedimentary environments ([3] [4]). Dramatic changes in chemical composition of specific sediment layers (Key horizons) have brought the useful information for interpretation of natural and anthropogenic events ([5]). Comparison of heavy metal concentrations with the threshold limits of standard guidelines is well-known method for assessment of ecological risks for human health and aquatic life ([6] [7] [8]). Therefore, the research objectives were designed to find out the most effective anthropogenic events in geochemical variations of sediments since the last two decades and to assess ecological risks based on quality of sediments.