Occurrence and sources of polar lipid tracers in sediments from the Shatt al-Arab River of Iraq and the northwestern Arabian Gulf

Ahmed I Rushdi; Bernd R T Simoneit; Ali A Z Douabul; Khalid F Al-Mutlaq; Aarif H El-Mubarak; Mohammed Qurban; Miguel A Goni

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.09.048

Occurrence and sources of polar lipid tracers in sediments from the Shatt al-Arab River of Iraq and the northwestern Arabian Gulf

Sci Total Environ. 2014 Feb 1:470-471:180-92. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.09.048. Epub 2013 Oct 18.

Authors

Ahmed I Rushdi¹, Bernd R T Simoneit², Ali A Z Douabul³, Khalid F Al-Mutlaq⁴, Aarif H El-Mubarak⁴, Mohammed Qurban⁵, Miguel A Goni⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Plant Protection and Chair of Green Energy Research, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P. O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia; College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA; Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, Sana'a University, Sana'a, Yemen.
² Department of Plant Protection and Chair of Green Energy Research, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P. O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia; Department of Chemistry, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
³ Delta Research Group, Marine Sciences Center, Basra University, Basra, Iraq.
⁴ Department of Plant Protection and Chair of Green Energy Research, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, P. O. Box 2460, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Center for Environment and Water, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.

PMID: 24140688
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.09.048

Abstract

Shallow surface sediment samples from the southern part of the Shatt al-Arab River estuary of Iraq and the northwestern Arabian Gulf were analyzed for polar lipid compounds including n-alkanoic acids, n-alkanols, steroids and triterpenoids. The results showed that the n-alkanoic acids, methyl n-alkanoates and n-alkanols typically ranged from C12 to C32 with total concentrations of 3.2 to 108.2 μg g(-1)dwt sample, from C12 to C30 with totals of 1.1 to 18.9 μg g(-1)dwt sample, and from C14 to C32 at 1.8 to 112.6 μg g(-1)dwt sample, respectively. Steroids and triterpenoids were detected and included stenols, stanols, stenones, stanones, tetrahymanol, tetrahymanone and extended ββ-hopanes. The total steroid concentrations ranged from 2.8 to 78.4 μg g(-1)dwt sample, whereas the triterpenoids varied from 0.05 to 7.6 μg g(-1)dwt sample. The simple regression analysis of the results and the spatial distribution patterns of the identified organic tracers indicated that the inter-compound relationships were related mainly to their major sources. Cluster analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) of data set showed that the sampling sites are similar. These sources were allochthonous (terrestrial vegetation), autochthonous (plankton residues and bacteria in the sediments) and anthropogenic (sewage and petroleum).

Keywords: GC–MS; Iraq; Polar compounds; Shatt al-Arab; UCM.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Environmental Monitoring*
Geologic Sediments / chemistry*
Iraq
Lipids / analysis
Rivers / chemistry*
Steroids / analysis
Water Pollutants, Chemical / analysis*

Substances

Lipids
Steroids
Water Pollutants, Chemical