ABSTRACT
The present study was conducted to investigate the concentration of nitrate in drinking water resources and its carcinogenic risk in the southern provinces of Iran in 2020. Raw data of nitrate concentrations were obtained from wastewater and water Company of each province, and Mont Carlo Simulation (MCS) was considered 10‐5 for estimating human carcinogenic risk. Our results demonstrated that in the drinking water resources of Khuzestan and Fars provinces, the nitrate level was 59 and 72 mg/L, respectively, higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation. The calculated carcinogenic risk of nitrate for Khuzestan and Fars provinces were higher than the range set by WHO and Health Canada, 8.8 × 10−5 and 1.3 × 10−5, respectively. Exposure to an unacceptable nitrate level through drinking water can affect blood carrying oxygen and cause methemoglobinemia and a significant relationship with gastrointestinal cancer spread.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the farm owners for their kind help in sampling. We also thank Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences for their financial support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Ethical approval
The Ethics Committee approved the study of Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences (Ethical code: IR.AJUMS.REC.1398.982).
Data availability
All relevant data during the current study are within the manuscript and available from the corresponding author on reasonable request
Author’s contributions
All authors have contributed to the designing, collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. All authors have studied and approved the final manuscript.