Author(s)

Menghan Wang, Benedetto De Vivo, Stefano Albanese, Annamaria Lima, Wanjun Lu, Flavia Molisso, Marco Sacchi

C.N.R. Istituto Geomare Sud, Napoli, Italy.
Department of Marine Science, Faculty of Earth Resource, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China.
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra Università di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy.

In this study, superficial marine sediments collected from 96 sampling sites were analyzed for 53 inorganic elements. Each sample was digested in aqua regia and analyzed by ICP-MS. A developed multifractal inverse distance weighted (IDW) interpolation method was applied for the compilation of interpolated maps for both single element and factor scores distributions. R-mode factor analysis have been performed on 23 of 53 analyzed elements. The 3 factor model, accounting 84.9% of data variability, were chosen, The three elemental associations obtained have been very helpful to distinguish anthropogenic from geogenic contribution. The aim of this study is to distinguish distribution patterns of pollutants on the sea floor of NaplesandSalernobays. In general, local lithologies, water dynamic and anthropogenic activities determine the distribution of the analyzed elements. To estimate pollution level in the area, Italian guidance, Canadian sediment quality guidance and Long’s criteria are chosen to set the comparability. As the results shows, arsenic and lead may present highly adverse effect to living creatures.

Pollution Level; Compositional Data Analysis; Factor Analysis; Napoli and Salerno Gulf

Wang, M. , De Vivo, B. , Albanese, S. , Lima, A. , Lu, W. , Molisso, F. and Sacchi, M. (2013) Investigation on Inorganic Pollution Level in Surface Sediments of Naples and Salerno Bay. Computational Water, Energy, and Environmental Engineering, 2, 36-40. doi: 10.4236/cweee.2013.22B006.