Environmental risk assessment in sediments from Jiu River, Romania

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to assess the heavy metal pollution and ecological risk in sediments of the Jiu River, Romania, upstream and downstream of mining: Vulcan, Lupeni, Uricani, Petrila, Rovinari and Turceni Energy Complexes. Contamination factor (CF), geoaccumulation index (Igeo), pollution load index (PLI), Nemerow pollution index (PI), potential ecological risk index (RI), were used to evaluate the quality of the Jiu River sediments. In sediments of the Jiu River there is low environmental risk upstream and downstream of Bumbesti Jiu, a moderate ecological risk downstream of Petrila, a strong environmental risk downstream of Vulcan Mining, downstream of Uricani, downstream of Livezeni, upstream and downstream of Rovinari Energy Complex and downstream of Turceni Energy Complex, and a strong ecological risk downstream of Lupeni Mining, upstream of Uricani and upstream of Petrila.