Current World Environment

Monitoring of the state of the environment in the waterway itself and in the entire catchment area is important for its sustainable development. Heavy metals are strong environmental pollutants and many of them are toxic, even at very low concentrations. In this study River Drina was chosen due to these unique characteristics: the great river with large auto purification ability but in pressure of anthropogenic activities including hydropower plants, border between countries. The aim of this research was to compare data from chemical analyses of Ni, Zn, Cu, Cr, Cd, As, Pb and Hg contents in water, suspended solids and sediment with its contents in native macrophytes, Myriophyllum spicatum, and Potamogeton pusillus, in reservoirs of hydropower plants Bajina Bašta and Zvornik, on river Drina in Republic of Serbia. Contents of heavy metals in water were low and belongs to water class I.  Heavy metal concentrations exceeds the limit values for Ni (184 mg/kg), Zn (3233 mg/kg), Cd (0.0042 mg/kg), Cu (157 mg/kg) and As (109 mg/kg) in Zvornik reservoir in suspended solids and sediment and for Zn (1048 mg/kg), Cu (402 mg/kg) and Hg (2.24 mg/kg) in Bajina Bašta reservoir, in suspended solids. In all the examined cases heavy metal contents in macrophytes were significantly higher than in water and relationship with suspended solids and sediment depends to plant species and metal. For Ni, Cd and As accumulation was obseved only in Myriophyllum spicatum, for Cu and Pb in both types. The obtained results indicate the need for further monitoring of the concentration of heavy metals in macrophytes, as well as sediment and suspended solids, in order to indicate and assess the quality of the aquatic ecosystem.