HRIDOY RANJAN SAIKIA, NEERU BALA, YOGESH B. PAKADE1 AND JATINDER KAUR KATNORIA*
Department of Botanical and Environmental Sciences, Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar-143 005 (Punjab), India
*(e-mail: jatinder.botenv@gndu.ac.in; jatinkat@yahoo.co.in; Mobile 95010 12458)
(Received: May 15, 2023; Accepted: June 28, 2023)
ABSTRACT
Heavy metals are considered to be toxic because upon entering the living systems, these can bind to parts of cells and prevent various organs to perform their specific functions. Apart from this, metals are documented to cause irreversible damages. Considering this, the present study was planned to estimate the contents of chromium and cadmium in groundwater samples of 15 villages collected from vicinity of Kanjali wetland (Ramsar site) in Kapurthala district, Punjab (India) and to study their potential health risk using health quotients like estimated daily intake (EDI), target hazard quotient (THQ) and cancer risk (CR). The content of chromium was observed to be as 0.2628 μg/l (NP) – 0.9541 μg/l (KW), while cadmium was below detection limit (BDL) in all water samples collected using submersible pumps. For water samples collected using hand pumps, the content of chromium was observed to be below detection limit (BDL) except for two samples i.e. Surkhpur (SK) and Chakoki (CK) in which chromium content was observed to be 3.730 and 1.058 μg/l, respectively. The cadmium content was found in only one water sample collected using hand pump from Surkhpur (2.56 μg/l). For handpump samples, this sample (SK) showed the maximum values for cancer risk (CR) as 5.3008 and target hazard quotient (THQ) as 1.774 for Cr metal, while CR as 4.435 and THQ as 4.436 for Cd metal in water sample. Estimated daily intake (EDI) for Cr metal was 0.03667 μg/kg/day (CK) to 0.1292 μg/kg/day (SK) in hand pump samples and 0.0091 μg/kg/day (NP) to 0.0331 μg/kg/day (KW) for submersible pumps, while for Cd metal, EDI was observed as 0.0887 μg/kg/day for SK sample.
Key words : Health risk assessment, cancer risk, target hazard quotient, estimated daily intake, heavy metals