Occurrence, potential health risk of heavy metals in aquatic organisms from Laizhou Bay, China

Heavy metal pollution is a serious environmental problem. Up to date, research regarding distribution, accumulation and potential risk assessment of metals in aquatic organisms in Laizhou Bay, China is scarce. This study aims to investigate metals in aquatic organisms in this region. The results demonstrated that great variability of metals content occurred among species and sampling locations. Fe was the most abundant metal, followed by Zn, Mn, Cu, Ni, Cr, Cd and Pb. Overall, shellfish and crab displayed high enrichment ability compared with fish and shrimp. There was no significant correlation between metals and samples weight, delta C-13 and delta N-15 values. Principal component analysis (PCA) indicated that metals in samples were mainly derived from anthropogenic activities. Health risk of metals was evaluated on the basis of estimated daily intake (EDI) and target hazard quotient (THQ) values. The results indicated that metals in studied seafood had no significant risks for ordinary consumers.