Evaluation of heavy metal pollution index considering health risk in complete stretch of Ganga River

摘要

The purpose of the current study was to assess the level of heavy metal contamination in the Ganga River and its impact on human health at 26 different points along its course. Three samples from each monitoring station were taken as part of the investigation in October 2019. Analyses were done on nine heavy metal concentrations, including As, B, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb, and Zn. The mean concentration and standard deviation of As, B, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni, Pb, and Zn were found to be 0.634, 0.133, 0.220, 1.851, 0.642, 0.033, 0.485, 0.567, 2.611, 7.156, and 0.98, 0.073, 0.568, 3.861, 1.000, 0.065, 0.702, 0.776, 6.812, and 13.294 mu g/L, respectively. The quantification of pollution levels has been undertaken using the heavy metal pollution index (HPI). The range of HPI values for several monitoring stations ranged from 1.158 to 47.942, and the mean HPI value was 7.15 +/- 13.294. Based on HPI values, the current study has classified 84.63% of the monitoring stations as low (15), 7.69% as medium (15-30), and 7.69% as high (> 30). The HPI readings showed that there is little heavy metal contamination in the water of the Ganga River. A 'good' correlation has been found for HPI with As, B, Cu, Ni, and Pb with a value of 0.51, 0.56, 0.55, 0.85, and 0.76, respectively. This correlation suggests that heavy metals play a significant role in increasing pollution levels via HPI. Risks to human non-cancer health were evaluated using the hazard quotient (HQ) and hazard index (HI). During the study period, arsenic primarily leads to a higher HQ, while Fe indicates a lower HQ. All monitoring stations found that the HQ value for each metal was less than 1, which poses a low risk to human health. At the S7 monitoring station, the highest HI values were discovered for adults (7.42E-01) and children (8.23E-01). Both adults (4.45E-04) and children (4.93E-04) had the lowest HI at the S20 monitoring site. All monitoring stations revealed HI values below one, indicating that drinking Ganga River water directly poses no threat to children's or adults' health in terms of cancer. Children have a higher chance of being harmed by heavy metal toxicity because the monitored values of HQ and HI were discovered to be higher for them than for adults.