Combining multivariate analysis and human risk indices for assessing heavy metal contents in muscle tissues of commercially fish from Southern Red Sea, Saudi Arabia

Jizan fishers are the major fish source for more than 1.5 million populations in the southern region in Saudi Arabia. Despite the overgrowing of various man-made activities in Jizan City, no recent study on environmental monitoring was reported. In the current study, heavy metals were quantified in muscle tissues of 12 fish species, as the most edible, from Jizan fisheries. Electrothermal atomic absorption spectrophotometry was used for quantification after microwave wet digestion. Acceptable recovery values (83.46-97.48 %) for spiked fish samples with standard solutions were obtained. The following wide ranges of heavy metal concentrations (mu g/g, wet weight) in studied fish species were recorded: V (0.004-0.561), Cr (0.013-0.477), Mn (0.073-0.128), As (0.002-0.935), Se (0.083-3.058), Sn (2.835-5.540), and Pb (0.150-0.386). Comparing with international permissible limits, lower levels were recorded in the current study. For total metal accumulation, the relationship between species was examined by cluster analysis, which showed that Epinephelinae was the farthest species from others. The principal component analysis shows one component indicating normal distribution of heavy metals in fish species. Different metal pollution indices (1.35-0.30), which shows the distribution of the total heavy metal concentrations in each species, were recorded. The hazard indices for muscle consumption were less than 1.0 for all studied metals at both ingestion rates except Sn which showed a marginal value of 28.9.