Zinc, copper, cadmium, lead, manganese and nickel pollution in vattakayal lake, kollam district, kerala

some heavy metals are essential trace elements, most of them can be toxic to all forms of life at high concentrations due to formation of complex compounds within the cell. Unlike organic pollutants, heavy metals once introduced into the environment cannot be biodegraded. They persist indefinitely and cause pollution of air, water, and soils. Most of the lakes in tropical region of India face severe effect of heavy metal pollution, as a consequence of industrial revolution and urban agglomeration, all have serious detrimental impact on people and ecosystems those who rely on such bodies of water. Vattakayal lake system was one of the most productive ecosystems of Kerala, now became heavily polluted due to the effluents from KMML Titanium dioxide pigment plant at Sankaramangalam which pose grave environmental problems, affecting the biota directly or indirectly. In this study both surface and bottom water samples were seasonally analyzed for determining the concentration of metals such as zinc, copper, cadmium, lead, manganese and nickel. The result showed that the sites of the lake, near the industrial area was more contaminated with the metals than the sites of non industrial area. An increasing trend of metal concentration was observed in the bottom water than surface water. The physic-chemical parameters such as temperature, pH and salinity were also analyzed to understand the metal accumulation in water body. The prevailing conditions of temperature, pH and salinity in Vattakayal lake waters have indicated the enhanced rate of accumulation of metals.Statistical analysis was performed using statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 16.0. Pearson correlation analysis was performed to identify the relationship of various hydrographical and physico chemicalparameter.