Levels of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in sediment samples from selected Jordanian dams

An experimental study was carried out on sediment of five Jordanian dams namely Tannur, Mujib, Karamah, King Talal, and Wadi ElArab to assess the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations by using GC/MS. King Talal dam had highest concentration of all studied pollutants flowed by Wadi ElArab. Both dams are considered most polluted dams, the total PAHs concentration (∑PAHs) was found for both dams as 69.91 ng/g and 35.31 ng/g, respectively, also ∑pg TEQ/g value was found to be 3470.95 and 278.62 for both dams, respectively. The calculated total cancer risk for each dam shows that King Talal dam and Wadi ElArab had highest value which is 2.40304E–05 and 1.92897E–06, respectively. It was found that Tannur, Mujib, and Karamah dams are relatively clean with low pollution level compared to King Talal and Wadi ElArab dams. This is because there are no industrial activities in their surroundings and could also be explained by the fact that these compounds need harder conditions to be synthesized. It was found that source of PAHs in the sediments of all dams is related to pyrolytic processes. This environmental study provides up-to-date data for researchers around the world of PAHs concentrations in Jordanian dams as indicator for pollution and comparison purposes.