The First Data on the Hydrocarbon Composition of Water, Bottom Sediments of the North Crimean Canal and Soils Adjacent to Agricultural Land

O. V. Soloveva, E. A. Tikhonova*

A.O. Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas of RAS, Sevastopol, Russia

* e-mail: tihonoval@mail.ru

Abstract

The paper presets the results of quantitative and qualitative indicators of the hydrocarbon composition of water, bottom sediments of the North Crimean Canal and soil from adjacent agricultural lands during filling the canal with water after an eight-year break. The material for the study was water, bottom sediments and soil samples taken in the spring of 2022. When planning sampling, the ways of hydrocarbon entry into the canal were taken into account: directly with the Dnieper water, with atmospheric precipitation, and with washout from nearby territories. The qualitative and quantitative composition of hydrocarbons in water, bottom sediments, and soil was determined by gas chromatography in the Scientific and Educational Center for Collective Use «Spectrometry and Chromatography» of IBSS. To identify probable sources of the studied class of substances, biogeochemical markers were used. The obtained concentrations of aliphatic hydrocarbons in water (0.032±0.006 mg·L−1) of the studied section of the North Crimean Canal did not exceed the maximum permissible values (0.05 mg·L−1) and were close to the values typical for unpolluted water areas. The hydrocarbon content in the bottom sediments of the canal (30 mg·kg−1 air-dry bottom sediments) and in adjacent fields (18.1 mg·kg−1 air-dry bottom sediments) also indicated the absence of high pollution levels. In the canal water, n-alkanes were identified in the C17–C32 range; in the bottom sediments and soils of adjacent territories, the n-alkane range was C17–C33. The composition of n-alkanes and the values of biogeochemical markers in water indicated a mixed nature of hydrocarbons with a predominance of compounds of allochthonous origin washed away from the drainage basin of the lower Dnieper. The composition of n-alkanes and the markers calculated for the bottom sediments and soils were typical for the soils of the steppe regions and were significantly similar to them.

Keywords

hydrocarbons, water, bottom sediments, soil, North Crimean canal

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to I. N. Moseichenko and D. B. Yevtushenko, the leading engineers of the Department of Radiation and Chemical Biology IBSS, for their assistance in sampling. The work was performed under RNF grant on topic no. 23-26-00128 “The role of the irrigation system of the North-Crimean Canal in processes of the transfer of long-lived radionuclides of the Chernobyl origin, heavy metals, and hydrocarbons with the Dnieper water to the irrigated farmlands of Crimea”.

For citation

Soloveva, O.V. and Tikhonova, E.A., 2023. The First Data on the Hydrocarbon Composition of Water, Bottom Sediments of the North Crimean Canal and Soils Adjacent to Agricultural Land. Ecological Safety of Coastal and Shelf Zones of Sea, (2), pp. 120–133. doi:10.29039/2413-5577-2023-2-120-133

DOI

10.29039/2413-5577-2023-2-120-133

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