Assessment of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Contamination in Water, Sediment and Fish of Temsah Lake, Suez Canal, Egypt

The nature, origin and distribution of the listed reference US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) priority pollutants; 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were investigated in water, sediment and fish of Temsah Lake (Suez Canal, Egypt) using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The compositions of PAHs determined in all samples were measured in order to use them as chemical markers for identifying different sources of PAHs pollution in the studied region. Qualitative and quantitative distribution of PAHs detected in all investigated samples have followed no particular pattern, but rather irregular. Quantitative determination of PAHs show that their concentration ranged from 52.46–3393μg/L, 585.9-8592.8μg/L and 1696.4–4785.7μg/L for water, sediment and fish samples, respectively. Data show that these values are considered to be alarmingly high and the studied areas have values high enough to cause lethal toxicity effect to the surrounding environment and consequently to the human health. All samples are characterized by low concentration of low molecular weight PAHs compared to high molecular weight PAHs. Sediment and fish samples are characterized by relatively high concentration of six membered rings PAHs. The origin of PAHs in collected samples is either petrogenic, biogenic or mixed petrogenic and biogenic.