Abstract
Concerns over human health safety from consumption of fishes originating from Kuantan river remain urgent due to recent rapid anthropogenic activities surrounding Kuantan river including bauxite mining. Health risk assessment is an important tool to evaluate the consequences of human activities and weighs the adverse effects to public health against the contributions to economic development. This study is aimed to estimate the target hazard quotient (THQ) and Target Hazard Index (THI) of heavy metals from commercially important and highly consumed fish species among Kuantan communities. Samples of Sebarau (Hampala macrolepidota), Lampam sungai (Barbonymus schwanenfeldii), and Lampam jawa (Barbonymus gonionotus) were caught by using fishnet gills along Kuantan river between June 2019 and December 2019. The fish were then digested and analyzed using Inductively Coupled Plasma – Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). The results revealed that the levels of eight metals (mg/kg) in all fish samples were ranked accordingly to their concentration in descending order of Al > Fe > Zn > Cu > Ni > As > Pb > Cd, suggesting that all the freshwater fishes in Kuantan river were contained with heavy metals. The average concentrations of Al, Fe, Zn, and Cd were the highest in H.macroleidota which were (50.0 ± 8.33, 35.25 ± 1.80, 4.58 ± 3.80, and 0.057 ± 0.018) mg/kg. Moreover, the average concentrations of Cu and Pb were the highest in B.gonionotus which were 4.23 ± 0.23 and 0.63 ± 0.10 and Ni concentrations were found the highest in B.shwanenfeldii (0.34 ± 0.35 mg/kg), respectively. However, metals concentration in all fishes were below the permissible limit stipulated by the World Health Organizations (WHO) (1985), the Food and Agriculture Organization FAO (2003), and the Malaysian Food Act 1983. It was also noticed that consumption of all fishes may bring about health risks from different metals as indicated by varied THI values. Consumption of the three species was noticed to promote high health risk from As intoxication as the HQ for As was >1.00. Hence, health risk assessment is required in order to determine the probability of human health risk due to heavy metals following the consumption of fish originating from a collection site. A lot of studies on heavy metal pollution by bauxite mining have been done by many researchers, but few studies have been published related to health risk assessment on heavy metal pollution based on fish consumption.
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The research is supported by KPT Grant FRGS/1/2016/Wab05/UNISZA/03/1.
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Yaakub, N., Rohalin, W.M. (2022). Human Health Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals Exposure Due to Selected Freshwater Fishes Ingestion from Sungai Kuantan, Malaysia. In: Samah, M.A.A., Kamarudin, M.K.A. (eds) Environmental Management and Sustainable Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93932-8_2
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