Magntic susceptibility as a proxy to heavy metal content in the sediments of Anzali wetland, Iran

Heavy metal concentrations and magnetic susceptibility of sediment samples were analyzed as indicators of urbanand industrial contamination in anzali wetland in gilan, iran. the aim was to investigate the suitability of magneticproperties measurements for indicating heavy metal pollution. the concentration of six heavy metals (ni, cr, cd, zn,fe, and pb) was determined in different depths of four sediment core samples within four different regions of thewetland (abkenar, hendekhaleh, shijan and siakeshim). average concentration of heavy metals in the sedimentcores was higher than the severe effect level (sel) for ni, cr and fe (77.26, 113.63 ppm and 5.2%, respectively) andlower than sel for cd, zn and pb (0.84, 137.7, 29.77 ppm, respectively). it was found that the trend of metalconcentrations with the depth is different in each core and is related to the pollution discharges into the riversentering the wetland. core magnetic susceptibility measurements also showed different magnetic properties ineach core. cluster analysis was applied using pearson correlation coefficient between heavy metal concentrationsand magnetic properties across each core. significant relationship was found to exist between magneticsusceptibility and the concentration of ni in abkenar and the concentration of fe in other regions. whereasabkenar is almost the isolated and uncontaminated region of the wetland, it revealed a difference in magneticproperties between contaminated and uncontaminated sediments. it was concluded that magnetic properties ofsamples from contaminated zone were mostly related to fe content. the result of this study demonstrated thatmagnetic susceptibility measurements could be applied as a proxy method for heavy metal pollution determinationin marine environments in iran especially as a rapid and cost-effective introductory site assessments.