Ecological monitoring of fish fauna of Kazakhstan sector of the Caspian sea for oil and heavy metal contamination

The article presents the results of the spring and autumn periods of 2014-2015, the research of the muscle tissue of fish caught in the northern and central part of the Kazakh sector of the Caspian Sea for the hydrocarbon content of the petroleum series with the help of GLC. Since the autumn of 2014 until the spring of 2016 there was a research vessel, the team of which worked together with the Scientific and Production Centre for Fisheries of JSC ‘KazAgroInnovation’ catching commercial fish of the following families: clupeidae (Clupeidae), the family cyprinidae (Cyprinidae), Sturgeon (Acipenser), Perch (Percidae). In all caught fish specimens the hydrocarbons of the petroleum se-ries have been found. The content of petroleum hydrocarbons in the fish in the autumn of 2014 was 2.4-216.0 mg/kg; in the spring of 2015 it was 21.4-512.7 mg/kg, in the autumn of 2015 it was 4.0-332.4 mg/kg. It was noted that the accumulation of oil occurs in the representatives of the following families: Carps (Cyprinidae), Sturgeon (Acipenser), clupeidae (Clupeidae) in particular in Caspian roach (Rutilus rutilus caspicus), sturgeon (Acipenser guldenstadti Brandt) and Caspian her-ring (Clupea caspia). It was found out that the se-ries according to descending of accumulation of petroleum hydrocarbons in the muscle tissue, the representatives of fish fauna of the Caspian Sea can be arranged as follows: Carp (Cyprinidae), Sturgeon (Acipenser), Herring (Clupeidae). Heavy metal contamination are sampling points 4, 7, 10, 11, 14, 18 and 20 located in the vicinity of aban-doned wells and oil fields. In all the samples of fish taken in the central and northern part of the Caspi-an Sea, the chromium content exceeds the MPC level in 3-76 times, lead - in 1.2-28.6 times, mer-cury was in 1.2-19.1 times, iron was in 1.1-10.6 times. Copper, cadmium and arsenic are not de-tected in the submitted samples or are at the con-centration below the MPC. The data on the accu-mulation of petroleum series of hydrocarbons and heavy metals in fish fauna representatives of the northern and central part of the Kazakhstan sector of the Caspian Sea characterize the toxicological situation in the explored area.