Ecological and health risk assessment of heavy metals in the Hattar industrial estate, Pakistan

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the heavy metals (HMs) contaminations in soil of the Hattar industrial estate (HIE), Haripur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. For this purpose, various types of soils were collected in HIE and analyzed for the HMs concentrations. The HMs showed highest contamination levels in wastewater irrigated agriculture soil (WWIAS), followed by waste dump site soil (WDSS), and the lowest in range land soil (RLS). Determined HMs concentrations were used for pollution quantification factors, including contamination factors (CFs), pollution load index (PLI), ecological risk factor (ER), and potential health risk assessment, including chronic or non-cancer and cancer risk levels.

Keywords:

• Human risk assessment
• non-cancer risk
• cancer risk
• contamination factor
• ecological risk factor
• pollution load index

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors acknowledge the financial support of project # 20-2828/NRPU/R&D/HEC/10/712 received from Higher Education Commission, and technical support of National Centre of Excellence (NCE) in Geology, University of Peshawar, Pakistan.