- Title
- Unraveling health risk and speciation of arsenic from groundwater in rural areas of Punjab, Pakistan
- Creator
- Shakoor, Muhammad Bilal; Niazi, Nabeel Khan; Bibi, Irshad; Rahman, Mohammad Mahmudur; Naidu, Ravi; Dong, Zhaomin; Shahid, Muhammad; Arshad, Muhammad
- Relation
- International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Vol. 12, Issue 10, p. 12371-12390
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph121012371
- Publisher
- MDPI AG
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2015
- Description
- This study determined the total and speciated arsenic (As) concentrations and other health-related water quality parameters for unraveling the health risk of As from drinking water to humans. Groundwater samples (n = 62) were collected from three previously unexplored rural areas (Chichawatni, Vehari, Rahim Yar Khan) of Punjab in Pakistan. The mean and median As concentrations in groundwater were 37.9 and 12.7 µg·L-1 (range = 1.5-201 µg·L-1). Fifty three percent groundwater samples showed higher As value than WHO safe limit of 10 µg·L-1. Speciation of As in groundwater samples (n = 13) showed the presence of inorganic As only; arsenite (As(III)) constituted 13%-67% of total As and arsenate (As(V)) ranged from 33% to 100%. For As health risk assessment, the hazard quotient and cancer risk values were 11-18 and 46-600 times higher than the recommended values of US-EPA (i.e., 1.00 and 10-6, respectively). In addition to As, various water quality parameters (e.g., electrical conductivity, Na, Ca, Cl¯, NO₃¯, SO₄²¯, Fe, Mn, Pb) also enhanced the health risk. The results show that consumption of As-contaminated groundwater poses an emerging health threat to the communities in the study area, and hence needs urgent remedial and management measures.
- Subject
- arsenic; groundwater; speciation; health risk; cancer; contamination; toxicity
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1329977
- Identifier
- uon:26286
- Identifier
- ISSN:1661-7827
- Rights
- © 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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