Assessment of Some Heavy Metal Concentration in Fish, Water, And Sediment Of River Ndakotsu, Lapai, Niger State

Abstract

This research was conducted to assess the levels of heavy metals in fish tissue, sediment and water body, at river Ndakotsu, Lapai, Niger state, Nigeria. River Ndakotsu is the major river that serve as a boundary between Lapai local government and Agaie local government and is useful to surrounding towns and villages for irrigation farming fishing and domestic purposes. Due to this, it is necessary to monitor the level of heavy metals contamination in the water body, sediment and aquatic species tissue habiting this environment. The study water samples were collected using water sampler in three different locations. Equally, In-situ water physicochemical parameters such as temperature, ph and dissolve oxygen were determined using portable multi probes meter. Fish samples were collected from fishermen immediately they arrived from fish exploration and specimen were digested using concentrated nitric acid in wet digestion technique. The level of selected heavy metal in samples were determined by the use of Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS model: Accusys 211 USA) after samples dilution. The water quality of the river was within the acceptable range for fresh water species. The concentration of heavy metals, cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn) and zinc (Zn). From the results obtained from this study, the concentrations of heavy metals (Mn, Zn, Cd, Cu, Pb and Fe.) found in all the water samples are lower than that in the fish sample species and higher in sediment sample than fish sample