Potential bioavailability assessment, source apportionment and ecological risk of heavy metals in the sediment of Brisbane River estuary, Australia

Highlights - Assessment of potential bioavailable metals in estuary sediment - Receptor model was employed for source apportionment. - PROMETHEE was used to rank the sites based on contamination levels. - Enrichment factor based-indices are preferred for complete sediment assessment. Abstract A weak acid extraction was used to mobilize the loosely bound metals in estuary sediment samples. More than 30% of Ag, As, Ca, Cd, Co, Cu, Hg, Mn Ni, Pb and Zn were leached from the sediment showing that these metals are significantly present in the bioavailable form. PCA/APCS identified three sources of the metals, namely: lithogenic accounting for 72%, shipping related contributing 15% and traffic related representing 13% of the total load. Application of pollution index (PI) and modified pollution index (MPI) revealed that the sediment range from unpolluted to heavily polluted while ecological risk index (RI) classifies the sediment as posing low ecological risk modified ecological risk index (MRI) suggests considerable to very high ecological risk. To provide holistic insights into the ecological risks posed by metals, enrichment factor, MPI and MRI are recommended for the assessment of sediment in complex environments such as estuaries