Bio-monitoring of Heavy Metals in the Vicinity of Copper Mining Site at Erdenet, Mongolia

Abstract

A B S T R A C TThe objective of this research was to evaluate the level of heavy metal concentrations of copper, lead, zinc, cobalt, manganese, iron and nickle (Cu, Pb, Zn, Co, Mn, Fe and Ni) in correlation with human activities and land use at different sites of Erdenet, Mongolia. Samples of tree bark, lichens and street dust were collected and analyzed form the main highway, road intersections, residential areas, remote sites and the vicinity of the copper mine area near the city of Erdenet, Mongolia. The copper levels in all sampling sites with respect to all media differ from each other consistently and are clearly related to the distance from the copper mine. This indicates that the mining activities are the main source of copper rather than other anthropogenic activities in Erdenet, Mongolia. The lowest metal concentrations were found in residential areas. For street dust samples higher metal concentrations were found in the fine grains particles, which were attributed to higher surface area. This research provided strong evidence of air pollution as it could be concluded that tree bark and lichens can be recommended as efficient bioindicators of heavy metals air pollution in cold climate regions.

Evaluating the applicability of MESS (matrix exponential spatial specification) model to assess water quality using GIS technique in agricultural mountain catchment (Western Carpathian)

“…Source of iron compounds in natural water is sewage and industrial waste as well as corrosion of pipelines, tanks, equipment, and iron structures. Significant amounts of iron are found in mining waters and in sewage from ore refinement plants, etching plants, or chemical plants (Ziadat et al 2015 ). Manganese usually occurs in natural water together with iron.…”

Spatial relationship between hydrodynamic and physico-chemical parameters of surface water for a basin with shale rock series as an indicator of intensity and direction of chemical denudation in the Western Carpathians

“…Determining the level of micro-pollutants, especially heavy metals, is essential for monitoring areas exposed to contamination in long-term studies. The ionic composition of surface water determines the intensity and direction of the chemical denudation process conditioned by lithology (Kim et al, 2012;Ziadat et al, 2015). It also determines the quality ofthe surface watercourses inventory and the hydrographic network's operation (Trivedi, 2010).…”

Spatiotemporal Dispersion of Local-Scale Dust from the Erdenet Mine in Mongolia Detected by Himawari-8 Geostationary Satellite

“…Several studies have analyzed chemical characteristics of soil and dust samples (Brotons et al 2010;Djebbi et al 2017;Khademi et al 2018). Battogtokh et al (2014) and Ziadat et al (2015) proposed that the downwind areas of Erdenet were directly influenced by windblown dust.…”