metals ti, cr, mn, fe, ni, cu, zn and pb in aquatic plants of man-made water reservoir, eastern siberia, russia: tracking of environment pollution

The paper reports the results of research on the bratsk water body (russia), the hugest man-made reservoir in the world, using aquatic plants as bioindicators. this aquatic environment requires constant monitoring due to metal emissions by metallurgical, machine-building, and other industries. to that end, the accumulation capacities of myriophyllum spicatum l., elodea canadensis michx., potamogeton pectinatus l. and cladophora glomerata l. were compared. the ti, cr, mn, fe, ni, cu, zn, and, pb contents in the plants were quantified with x-ray fluorescence. the calculated bioaccumulation indexes provided similar indicator characteristics of these species. the clustering analysis specified the spatial metal pollution in the reservoir. the aquatic plants sampled near industrial enterprises demonstrated the high concentrations: ti (573-887), cr (14-22), mn (609-1080), fe (9231-12724), ni (8-11), cu (51-103), zn (35-45) and pb (10-40) µg/g. the average concentrations in the samples collected away from emission sources were significantly lower: ti (443-598), cr (7-10), mn (439-591), fe (4575-6573), ni (6-7), cu (36-58), zn (27-33) and pb (6-9). while, they were several-fold higher than threshold values reported for the lake baikal plants: ti – 6; cr – 2-2.6; ni – 1.9; fe – 3-6.7; mn – 1.5-2.6; cu – 4; zn – 1.2-2, and pb – 7.3. in addition to industrial impacts, the sedimentation processes, coastal erosion, wood rotting and ore occurrences caused increasing in metal contents. assessment of pollution through the pollution load index and the integration nemerov index provided the classification of the environment of the bratsk water reservoir as polluted one.