Heavy metal pollution assessment through comparison of different indices in sewage-fed fishery pond sediments at East Kolkata Wetland, India

The sediments of the raw sewage-fed fishpond system at East Kolkata Wetland (EKW) were analyzed for heavy metal content in a comprehensive way. Various indices of contamination like enrichment factor (EF), geo-chemical index (I _geo), modified degree of contamination (mD_C), and pollution load index (PLI) were assessed. In all cases, instead of literature values, the metal concentrations of less contaminated sites, separated by the statistical approach of the hierarchical cluster analysis, were used as baseline values. In the present study, about 70% of the pond sediments are found uncontaminated, 5% display low degree of contamination and 25% are designated as moderate degree of contamination. Both the EF and I _geo indices highlighted that the metals lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), and chromium (Cr) are responsible for the contamination while there is little anthropogenic input in cases of Cu, Zn, and Ni. Most of the ponds situated near the main sewage flowing canals as well as the main traffic highway and close to the solid waste dumping areas recorded higher degree of metal contamination as evident from spatial variation of mD_C and PLI indices in the study area. Indices comparison study clearly indicates that although these are calculated using different methods, these may or may not produce the same indices values and hence the values should neither be compared nor be averaged. But all the above indices are directly related to a common term contamination factor (CF). Classification of contamination levels based on these CF values is found to be similar and this classification is only valid up to the level of high degree of contamination. Thus, the use of any one of these indices is sufficient to classify the degree of contamination of an area. However, to evaluate the contamination per metal, both I _geo and EF are effective while, to assess the composite effect of all the metals, PLI is preferable to mD_C.