Preliminary report on the levels of elements in four fish species from the Arabian Gulf of Saudi Arabia

This manuscript presents preliminary information on the concentrations of heavy metals: cadmium, lead, nickel, vanadium and arsenic in 66 fish samples of four different species collected from three different sites on the Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia where there are agricultural, municipality and petroleum industrial activities. Fish species; highly consumed by the local population were selected: Emperors, Rabbitfish, Doublebar-bream and Greasy-grouper to ascertain the fish quality for human consumption. The concentration of metals was determined by atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AA). The average mean concentrations (ng/g wet wt.) of cadmium, lead, nickel, vanadium and arsenic in fish tissues were as follows: 4.6 +/- 7.2, 20.0 +/- 20.8, 60.6 +/- 63.2, 73.6 +/- 27.1 and 42.7 +/- 17.4 ng/g wet wt. respectively. The concentration of metals was significantly affected by the sampling site and fish species. In Maniefa site, the concentrations of all tested metals were higher than in Al-Dammam and Dareen sites with the exception of nickel where no significant differences were found. Levels of cadmium, lead, nickel, vanadium and arsenic varied depending on the fish species. The concentration of metals was below the maximum allowed limit by the Saudi and international legislations for fish human consumption permissible limit. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.