Heavy Metal Pollution Assessment of Sediments of River Gora in Minna, North-Central Nigeria: Statistical Approach

Abstract

The main aim of this study is the assessment of the concentration and pollution levels of heavy metals in the sediments of River Gora. The result of the samples in ppm was exported from Microsoft Excel to SPSS Version 20. Twelve heavy metals from 24 locations were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA). Before PCA was done, the suitability of the data for factor analysis was assessed. Four component factors extracted revealed the following heavy metal associations, namely: component 1 (Fe, Cr, Sr, Cu and Zn), component 2 (Fe, Cu, V, Mo, Zn, As and Mn), component 3 (Ni, Sr, Cu, Pb, As and Mn) and component 4 (Ni, Sr, Zn and Sb). While some of the heavy metals were from lithogenic origin, others were from anthropogenic and mixed sources. The computed enrichment factors revealed that V, Cu, Mo, Sb, Fe and Mn are enriched while Cr, Ni, Zn, As, Sr and Pb suffered depletion in the study area. The results revealed the pollution index for V, Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Sr, Mo, Pb, Fe and Mn on scale of unpolluted to moderately polluted without environmental health risk; however, Sb indicated extremely high pollution level.

Keywords Heavy Metals, Pollution Index, Health Risk, River Gora, Minna, Nigeria