Temporal trend of polychlorinated biphenyls contamination in the northwestern Arabian Gulf – Evidence from sediment records

This study provides an insight into the polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) inventories in the sediments of the northwestern Arabian/Persian Gulf. PCBs can be used as chemical markers that correlate with historical events in the region, to estimate the sedimentation rates in the northern Gulf, and to determine the sources of pollutants in the study area. The concentrations of PCBs were generally patchy in sediments. At Station 1 the ΣPCB concentrations generally fluctuated between 0.100 and 0.400 ng g⁻¹ dw throughout the depositional history measured in a sediment core. There were four peaks in the ΣPCB profile corresponding to 1969, 1979, 1983 and 1991. Station 2 showed a prominent peak at depth of 25 cm. The concentrations of the ΣPCBs and ΣICE congeners at this depth were 28 and 12 ng g⁻¹ dw respectively. Concentrations then dropped dramatically thereafter by a factor of 4. The ΣPCB concentrations at Station 3 were very low compared to the concentrations measured at Stations 1 and 2. The PCB concentration in Core 4 which was taken from open waters was 2–3 orders of magnitude lower than those in the other coastal cores. However, a 1990–91 peak was omnipresent in these cores. There is no record of PCB production within the Gulf region, and PCB releases into the Kuwait marine environment are likely to originate from their use in products. These maxima in early-1990s can be correlated to inputs from war-related activities, including the reported destruction of PCB-containing transformers and military equipment during the occupation of Kuwait. None of the recent sediment core sections at the four stations had a ΣPCB concentration near the effects range-median (ERM) concentration of 180 ng g⁻¹, or permissible exposure limits (PEL) of 189 ng g⁻¹, or were above the effect range-low (ERL) values of 22.7 ng g⁻¹.