Sediment pollution in margins of the Lake Guaíba, Southern Brazil Leonardo Capeleto de Andrade & Tales Tiecher & Jessica Souza de Oliveira & Robson Andreazza & Alberto Vasconcellos Inda & Flávio Anastácio de Oliveira Camargo Received: 26 May 2017 /Accepted: 13 November 2017 # Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2017 Abstract Sediments are formed by deposition of organic and inorganic particles on depth of water bodies, being an important role in aquatic ecosystems, including destina- tion and potential source of essential nutrients and heavy metals, which may be toxic for living organisms. The Lake Guaíba supplies water for approximately two mil- lion people and it is located in the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul State, Brazil. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the sediment pollution in the margins of Lake Guaíba in the vicinity of Porto Alegre city. Surface sediment was sampled in 12 sites to assess the concentration of several elements (C, N, P, Fe, Al, Ca, Mg, Na, K, Mn, Ba, Zn, V, Pb, Cu, Cr, Ni, Cd, Mo, and Se) and the mineralogical composition. Sedi- ment in margins of Lake Guaíba presented predominantly (> 95%) sandy fraction in all samples, but with significant differences between evaluated sites. Sediments in the margins of Lake Guaíba showed indications of punctual water pollution with Pb, Cu, Cr, Ni, TOC, TKN, and P, mainly derived from urban streams that flow into the lake. In order to solve these environmental liabilities, public actions should not focus only on Guaíba, but also in the streams that flow into the lake. Keywords Limnology . Surface sediment . Watershed . Lacustrine beaches . Urban lake . Sewage Introduction Metropolitan areas have high population densities that increase the environmental impacts over the water re- sources. This damage is even greater in lakes due to the reduced flow and water change and consequently in- creases degradation of the environmental quality (Amorim et al. 2009; Cavalcanti et al. 2014). Urban lakes are important to the maintenance of anthropic ecosystems and the quality of life of the population. However, they are distinguished from the lakes in rural Environ Monit Assess (2018) 190:3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-017-6365-9 Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-017-6365-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. L. C. de Andrade (*) : J. S. de Oliveira Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil e-mail: eng.capeleto@gmail.com J. S. de Oliveira e-mail: jessica.ufrgs@gmail.com T. Tiecher : A. V. Inda : F. A. de Oliveira Camargo Soil Department, UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil T. Tiecher e-mail: tales.tiecher@gmail.com A. V. Inda e-mail: alberto.inda@ufrgs.br F. A. de Oliveira Camargo e-mail: fcamargo@ufrgs.br R. Andreazza Engineering Center, UFPel, Pelotas, RS, Brazil e-mail: robsonandreazza@yahoo.com