RT Journal Article
T1 Toxicity and potential risk assessment of a river polluted by acid mine drainage in the Iberian Pyrite Belt (SW Spain)
A1 Miguel Sarmiento, Aguasanta
A1 Valls Casillas, Tomás Ángel del
A1 Nieto Liñán, José Miguel
A1 Salamanca Marín, María José
A1 Caraballo Monge, Manuel Antonio
AB Metal contamination from acid mine drainage (AMD) is a serious problem in the southwest of the IberianPeninsula, where the Iberian Pyrite Belt is located. This zone contains original sulfide reserves of about1700 Mt distributed among more than 50 massive sulfide deposits. Weathering of these minerals releases tothe waters significant quantities of toxic elements, which severely affect the sediments and surface waters ofthe region. The main goal of this paper is to evaluate the toxicity and the potential risk associated with themining areas using Microtox test and different factors which assess the degree of contamination of thesediments and waters. For this, a natural stream polluted by AMD-discharge from an abandoned mine hasbeen studied. The results show that elevated concentrations of Cu, As and Zn involve an important potentialrisk on the aquatic environment, associated both with sediments and waters. Microtox test informs that thesediments are extremely or very toxic, mainly related to concentrations of Fe, As, Cr, Al, Cd, Cu and Zn.Pollution is mainly transferred to the sediments increasing their potential toxicity. A natural creek affected byAMD can store a huge amount of pollution in its sediments while exhibiting a not very low water pH and lowwater metal concentration.
PB Elsevier
SN 0048-9697
SN 1879-1026 (electrónico)
YR 2011
FD 2011-09
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10272/23140
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10272/23140
LA eng
NO Sarmiento, A. M., DelValls, A., Nieto, J. M., Salamanca, M. J., & Caraballo, M. A. (2011). Toxicity and potential risk assessment of a river polluted by acid mine drainage in the Iberian Pyrite Belt (SW Spain). In Science of The Total Environment (Vol. 409, Issue 22, pp. 4763–4771). Elsevier BV. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2011.07.043
NO This study has been financed by the Spanish Ministry of Science through projects CTM2005-07282-C03-C01/TECNO, CTM2008-06344-C02-C02/TECNO, CTM2008-06344-C02-C03/TECNO and CGL2010-21956-C02-02. A.M.S. was financially supported by the postdoctoral position within the Juan de la Cierva program of the Spanish Government. The comments and helpful criticisms of the Reviewers and the assistance and support of the Executive Editor, Dr. John G. Farmer, have considerably improved the quality of the original manuscript and are gratefully acknowledged.
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 1 jun 2026