Abstract—The coastal area surrounding Mekong Delta-Vietnam (MDV) is one of the largest clam farming sites in Vietnam. Furthermore, previous studies showed that the rapid growth of urbanization, industrialization, and agriculture lead to the contamination of heavy metals in MDV. Therefore, this study is aimed to evaluate the presence of cadmium (Cd), cooper (Cu), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) in sea water, sediment, as well as hard clam (Meretrix lyrata) around coastal area of Tien River Estuary named Tan Thanh. The results showed that all studied metals’ concentrations in sediment were lower than the limits of marine sediment quality guidelines, except Zn. The levels of studied metals in clam samples were less than the maximum values of metals in food which regulated by Commission Regulation 1881/2006 and some countries. Concentrations of Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn in the clam flesh were ranging between 0.01 and 1.34 mg kg^-1, 1.1 and 15.8 mg kg^-1, not detected and 0.6 mg kg^-1, as well as 9.9 and 192.5 mg kg^-1, respectively. Among the studied metals, Cd is considered as the most influential parameter for the health risk assessment of local clam consumers. According to this study, the daily intake of 100 g clam flesh (wet weight) is recommended as the largest amount of clam for local consumers.

Index Terms—Heavy metals, safe daily intake, sediment, white hard clam, Meretrix lyrata.

Viet Tuan Tran is with Institute for Tropical Technology and Environmental Protection, Vietnam (e-mail: viet.vittep@gmail.com).
Phuoc-Dan Nguyen and Huu-Viet Nguyen are with University of Technology, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam (e-mail: npdan@hcmut.edu.vn, nghuuvietbk@gmail.com).
Quoc-Tuc Dinh is with Département de Chimie-Université de Montréal, Canada (e-mail: quoctuc@yahoo.com).
Emilie Strady is with French Research Institute for Sustainable Development and Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography, Marseille, France (e-mail: emilie.strady@ird.fr).
Sunghee Han is with Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea (e-mail: shan@gist.ac.kr).

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Cite: Viet Tuan Tran, Phuoc-Dan Nguyen, Quoc-Tuc Dinh, Huu-Viet Nguyen, Emilie Strady, and Sunghee Han, "Heavy Metal Concentrations in Hard Clam Meretrix lyrata and the Coastal Environment of Tien River Estuary, Mekong Delta," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 231-238, 2022.

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