Marine pollution in the Libyan coastal area: Environmental and risk assessment

A comprehensive assessment of the potential adverse effects on environment and human health generated by theinputs of chemicals from the most important Libyan petrochemical plant is presented. Ecotoxicological riskassociated with the presence of As, Hg, Ni, Zn and PAHs in marine sediments is low or moderate, with aprobability of toxicity for ecosystem<9% and<20% for heavy metals and PAHs respectively. However, surfacesediments result strongly enriched in Hg and As of anthropogenic origin. Investigation of metals in fishallowed to assess potential risks for human populations via fish intake. Target hazard quotients values indicatepotential risk associated to toxic metals exposure by fish consumption and lifetime cancer risk (TR) valueshighlight a potential carcinogen risk associated to As intake. Noteworthy, the presented results provide anunprecedented environmental dataset in an area where the availability of field data is very scant, for a betterunderstanding of anthropogenic impacts at Mediterranean scale.