The Land Snail, Eobania vermiculata, as a Bioindicator of the Heavy Metal Pollution in the Urban Areas of Sulaimani, Iraq

Aso H. Saeed H. Salih, Abdullah A. Hama, Karzan A. M. Hawrami and Allah Ditta
Additional contact information
Aso H. Saeed H. Salih: Community Health Department, College of Health and Medical Technology, Sulaimani Polytechnic University, Sulaymaniyah 46002, Kurdistan, Iraq
Abdullah A. Hama: Medical Laboratory Department, College of Health and Medical Technology, Sulaimani Polytechnic University, Sulaymaniyah 46002, Kurdistan, Iraq
Karzan A. M. Hawrami: Medical Laboratory Science, College of Applied science in Halabja/Sulaimani Polytechnic University, Sulaymaniyah 46002, Kurdistan, Iraq
Allah Ditta: Department of Environmental Sciences, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Sheringal, Upper Dir 18000, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 24, 1-14

Abstract: Land snails are crucial consumers in the terrestrial environment and beneficial significant bioindicators to evaluate the chemical impact in the ecosystem, especially on urban lands. The present study aimed to investigate the concentration of heavy metals such as As, Cr, Ni, Pb, and Zn in urban soil and study whether Eobania vermiculata acts as a bioindicator for heavy metal contamination in an urban area. Thirty soil and snail samples in triplicate from each sampling site were taken from the urban areas of Suliamani. After a microwave-assisted digestion procedure, every sample was analyzed by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry. Results showed that the concentration of chromium (Cr) in each snail sample was significantly high. The maximum Cr concentration (15.87 mg kg −1 ) was recorded in the snail sample collected from Ali Kamal Park, which was adjacent to a very crowded traffic road. The As concentration in snail samples ranged from 0.08 to 1.004 mg kg −1 , and it was below the permissible limits. However, the concentrations of heavy metals in urban soil locations were below their background measurements, except for nickel (Ni) which was above the permissible limits. The safest site in the study area was Chaviland 1, while the most contaminated site was the Ha-wary Shar Park. The snails bioaccumulated metals in their tissues in the following order, Cr > Zn > Ni, and this bioaccumulation occurred more on the main road locations, which represented potentially contaminated places due to anthropogenic activities. Moreover, there was no correlation among the heavy metals within the soil samples when compared to the similar metals in the snail samples, due to the low concentration of heavy metals in soil, excluding Ni, from where the snail samples were collected. Consequently, the land snail, E. vermiculata , is an appropriate sentinel organism for some metals, mainly for Cr, and the bioindicator monitoring with this snail should be extended to mixtures of heavy metals, since such relationships frequently occur in soil.

Keywords: land snail; Eobania vermiculata; heavy metals; bioindicator; Sulaimani urban soil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13719/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/24/13719/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:24:p:13719-:d:700773

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().