Monitoring and Risk Assessment of Selected Pesticide Congeners (PCBs) in Nile River Waters, Egypt

Abstract

Discharging of higher levels of persistent organic pollutant (POPs) including PCBs to the Nile River waters poses a great environmental impact and human hazardous risk. Therefore, we carried out this study to assess the concentration levels of selected PCB congeners and evaluate their health risk at three different areas along Nile River from South to North of Egypt. Collected samples were extracted and analyzed using (GC-Ms, Agilent). The detected total average concentration levels of selected ten PCB congeners along the three sampling sites Beni-suef (S1), Greater Cairo S2) and Banha (S3) were ranged from 3.89 to 25.5 with an average of 16.51 𝜇g/L, 5.51 to 33.61 with an average of 20.75 𝜇g/L and from 6.14 to with an average of 27.01 𝜇g/L at S1, S2 and S3, respectively. These concentrations were above the acceptable permissible limit set by USEPA for PCBs in drinking water (0.5 𝜇g/L), indicating an important PCB pollution problem in the Nile River water and high possibility of human adverse health effects. Therefore, counter measures and laws enforcement should be applied to minimize the risk of PCBs in the Egyptian environment.