Risk assessment of potentially toxic elements in agricultural soils and bioconcentration in rice grains from Faridkot District, India

Abstract

Potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in soil pose significant risks to both ecology and human health. Therefore, to understand the effect of PTEs in agricultural soils of Faridkot District, Punjab, India, 36 soil samples were analyzed for physicochemical properties, contents of PTEs (aluminum, arsenic, nickel, boron, uranium, barium, chromium, cadmium, copper, iron, lead, cobalt, manganese, selenium, and zinc), possible ecological and human health risks and bioconcentration in rice grains. Soils showed high mean contents (mg/kg) of potassium (906.65), sodium (760.78), and chlorides (247.13) with cadmium, copper, zinc, arsenic, and selenium contents (mg/kg) in 55.56%, 33.33%, 25.00%, 16.67%, and 13.89% of samples exceeding their safe limits (0.06, 20.00, 50.00, 20.00, and 0.20, respectively). Individual and multi-element indices suggested extremely high-soil enrichment of arsenic, cadmium, and selenium and low to moderate ecological risk. Multivariate analyses revealed the contribution of both geogenic and anthropogenic activities to soil contamination. Mean bioconcentration factors of chromium (4.48), boron (1.24), and copper (2.69) were >1.00 in rice. Residents had higher cancer risk (TCR) due to arsenic (3.64E-05) and chromium (4.04E-06) in soil, mainly through ingestion and dermal contact. This work could serve as baseline database for further research and designing the strategy to alleviate soil contamination.

Keywords:

• Agricultural fields
• cancer risk
• food analysis
• food composition
• potentially toxic elements
• rice grains

Acknowledgements

The authors are also thankful to Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar for providing the research facilities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Declarations

All authors have read, understood and have complied as applicable with the statement on "Ethical responsibilities of Authors" as found in the Instructions for Authors and are aware that with minor exceptions, no changes can be made to authorship once the paper is submitted.

Author contributions

Dr. Inderpreet Kaur: Conceptualization, Resources, Supervision, Formal analysis, Writing - Review, Editing & finalization of manuscript. Ms. Arashdeep Kaur: Methodology, Investigation, Data curation. Dr. Sakshi Sharma: Formal analysis, Writing - Original draft of manuscript.

Availability of data and materials

Authors would like to state that all relevant data and materials have been included in the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.