PETROLEUM HYDROCARBONS, HEAVY METALS, PHYSICOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS AND IMPACTING FACTORS ON DIVERSITY AND ABUNDANCE FISH SPECIES IN THE GARMAT ALI RIVERMohammed A. Jasim Aldoghachi and Abdul Hussein J. AbdullahAbstract The Garmat Ali River was studied by evaluating petroleum hydrocarbons, some heavy metals (Copper, Zinc, Chromium and Bromine) and the physicochemical properties of the water and their effect on the diversity and abundance of fish in this river. The analytical method for the measurement of total petroleum hydrocarbons concentrations was carried with infrared (IR) spectroscopy, while the atomic absorption spectrometer type, Shimadzu 1800 PC, (Japan) was used for measurement of target heavy metals. The current results showed a slight fluctuation in petroleum hydrocarbons concentrations (PHCs) during the months of 2020, and these values were within the permissible environmental limits. The four heavy metals were characterized by low levels ranging between 0.01 and 0.7 mg/l during months of 2020. The findings revealed that the conductivity rates were higher than the permissible limits. The higher values were (6440 μs/cm) for August, as well as the higher value of TDS were (3059 mg/l) for April which was above than the permissible limits for human. The study concluded that Garmat Ali River suffers from a significant decrease in the water quality, consequently, fish species possessing wide ranges of tolerance to the limiting factors have been prevailed, specially salinity, therefore three species had the highest relative abundance in the Garmat Ali River, T. whiteheadi, P. abu and C. gibelio, which accounted for 47.13% of the total number of species. |