Comparative Assessment of Heavy Metals Pollution in Surface Water in Ikoli River and Epie Creek in Yenagoa Metropolis Using Geographical Information System

The article is the investigation of heavy metals pollution on surface waterin Ikoli River and Epie creek in Yenagoa, metropolis, Bayelsa State. Pb,Cd, Ni, Cr, Fe, Zn was determined and evaluated using GeographicalInformation System. Zinc concentration was below the permissible limitof 3 mg/L in all the locations sampled. Iron is 77.78% below the limit ofWHO 2011 of 0.3 mg/L while other heavy metals examined in Ikoli Riverand Epie creek are highly polluted. The pollution index for contaminationindex shows 11.11% sample are high and 88.89% are low while theevaluation of heavy metal index and the pollution index load of the heavymetals contain 22.11% of the sample are low and 77.78% are high whichimply the Ikoli River and Epie creek is polluted. Multivariate treatment ofthe result revealed a good correlation between the PCA and HCA, whichshowed activities of natural processes and man influenced environmentalsources of the heavy metals which were mainly products of automobilesexhaust, water tank leakages as well as dumping of radioactive wastes andburning. The study investigated successfully the potential use of GIS withthe help of multiple criteria decision analysis to predict and characterizeareas of high pollution, medium, and low pollution in the study area.