assessment of heavy metal and oil pollution of sediments of south eastern caspian sea using indices

caspian sea as the biggest surrounded water body in the word has long been in the pressure from environmental standpoints due to the fact that its large is surrounding by the larg domestic, industrial and agricultural areas. concern to inverse impacts of the inputted pollutants on the aquatic organism and margin human societies’ health, quality monitoring of the sediment as the main fate of the pollutants in water bodies has long been considered. in the current study large area in the coastal areas of mazandran and gholestan province has been investigated with a view to their general pollution to petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals. observed concentrations of the heavy metals in the fine sediment show high but non-polluted concentration of ni (35-67 ), cu (15-50 ), zn (56-104 ), v (90-140 ) and cr (60-92 ) in the coast of mazandran and gholestan area and low to moderate pollution of the sediment to sn (3-4 ) and pb (22-25 ) in west and center parts of the study area. concentrations in the samples show variation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (pah) concentration in 150-1600 which accumulates more in sari and chaloss coast to the extent of moderate pollution of the region. obtained results in this study also point the proportional contamination of the sediment to total petroleum hydrocarbon (tpa) in neighbor of tonekabon and mahmood abad.