Cadmium bioaccumulation in Lamellidens marginalis and human health risk assessment: A case study in India

Abstract

Lamellidens marginalis is an easily available food with high nutritive value. The present study is based on the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW), India that produces mussels, consumed by human. Thus, the study of heavy metal pollution in the wastewater and mussel, and its transport to human is considered to be need of the hour to assess the health risk to human. The present study focuses on the cadmium accumulation in the outer exposed organs and the internal organs of L. marginalis. The mussel, sediment, and water were collected from the field and analyzed in the laboratory. The environmental factors were analyzed in situ. The survey work was conducted among the consumers of mussel around the EKW to predict the effect of cadmium on human. The result showed that the cadmium concentration of water was relatively important for the bioaccumulation process in L. marginalis. People having low level of income and age above forty, living adjoining the EKW were at high risk of cadmium pollution. The hazard quotient value of the above group was highest among all the groups across age and income. A ‘biofilter’ technique was suggested to mitigate the biomagnification of cadmium at the EKW.

Keywords:

• biofilter
• bioremediation
• physico-chemical factors
• mussels
• wastewater

Acknowledgments

The author, Santu Ghosh, is thankful to the Department of Environmental Science. The authors are thankful to the medical team composed of doctors, namely, Dr. Subha Bagchi, Medical Officer; Dr. Ujjwal Biswas, Medical Officer; and Dr. Amiya Bala, Clinical Tutor at College of Medicine and Sagore Dutta Hospital, Kolkata, India for the diagnosis of the people associated with the research work. The authors are thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments to improve the previous manuscript. The corresponding author acknowledges the help of scholars of the Ecology and Environmental Modelling Laboratory, the Department of Environmental Science, The University of Burdwan, teaching and non-teaching staffs for extending the help and research facilities in the Department.

Additional information

Funding

Sudipto Mandal greatly acknowledges SERB, DST, Government of India, New Delhi (Project No. EMR/2016/002618) for financial support to carry out this research work.