Pollution and health risk assessment of toxic metals in solid waste dumping site soil and its impact on groundwater: a case study

ABSTRACT

Distribution, sources, level of pollution, and associated human health risk assessment of toxic metals in municipal solid waste (MSW) dumping site soil of Tezpur town, located on the northern side of the river Brahmaputra, Assam were investigated. The extent of metal contamination in the MSW dumping site soil was evaluated using enrichment factor (EF), geoaccumulation index (I_geo), contamination factor (Cⁱ_f), degree of contamination (C_d), and pollution load index (PLI). Based on these indices it can be concluded that MSW dumping site soil is highly contaminated with Cd and Pb. Moreover, ecological risk indices demonstrated high and low to moderate potential ecological risk due to Cd and Pb, respectively. Although no significant non-carcinogenic risk was found for the measured metals, potential carcinogenic risks of Cr, Pb, Ni, Cd for both children and adults were observed. Source apportionment study was carried out using principal component analysis (PCA) and it was found that metals were mainly originated from two sources: (1) Cu, Pb, Zn, and Cd were mainly from different components of MSW; (2) Mn, Cr, and Ni were from lithogenic materials. The concentrations of Cd and Pb in groundwater source at a radial distance of 20 m from the dumping site exceeded the prescribed limit for drinking water set by World Health Organization (WHO) and raises serious concern to the people residing near the dumping site.

KEYWORDS:

• Municipal solid waste
• toxic metals
• pollution index
• health risk assessment
• groundwater

Acknowledgments

Authors are indebted to UGC-SAP (DRS-I) India (Sanction No. F.3-8/2016/DRS-I(SAP-II) Dated 16 August 2016) and DST FIST (Sanction No. SR/FST/ESI-142/2015(C) Dated 5 August 2016) for financial assistance to the Department of Environmental Science, Tezpur University. The authors are thankful to the Sophisticated Analytical Instrumentation Centre (SAIC), Tezpur University for providing adequate analysis facilities during the research work. Authors are also grateful to Tezpur Municipality Board and Mr. Hemanta Kumar Lahkar.

Disclosure statement

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Supplementary material

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