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Assessment of Health Risk and Presence of Metals in Water and Fish Samples from Doce River, Brazil, After Fundão Dam Collapse

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Abstract

The rupture of the Fundão dam released about 50 million m3 of mining tailings in the Doce river basin. To assess the potential for environmental contamination and the risks of residual exposure of the human population generated by these tailings, water and fish samples from the Doce river were collected 25 days after the accident and analyzed the physicochemical parameters of the water and levels of metals by ICP-MS, in addition to the temporal variability of the concentration of these elements through other studies. This was the first study to carry out an assessment of the health risk associated with the consumption of fish contaminated by metals from the areas affected by the disaster. The values of turbidity (5460 NTU), electrical conductivity (74.8 μS cm−1), total dissolved solids (892 mg L−1) and total suspended solids (772 mg L−1) were above the maximum limit allowed by Brazilian legislation, due to the presence of large amounts of solid materials released after the dam rupture. The analysis of metals in water samples indicated high concentrations of Al (1,906.71 μg L−1), Mn (370.32 μg L−1), Fe (8,503.50 μg L−1) and Hg (34.25 μg L−1), while for the fish samples, only As (1,033.98 μg kg−1) and Hg (herbivorous: 505.32 μg kg−1; predatory: 1,184.09 μg kg−1) presented levels above those established by Brazilian legislation. The health risk assessment showed that the estimated daily intake for Hg was higher than the reference dose, reinforcing the need for monitoring the area affected by the disaster.

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Fig. 1

Adapted from IGAM (2010)

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Data Availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Ciência, Engenharia e Tecnologia, Universidade Federal dos Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, Teófilo Otoni, MG, 39803-371, Brazil

    Amanda Oliveira Mourão, Mayra Soares Santos, Alexandre Sylvio Vieira da Costa, Heberson Teixeira da Silva, Márcia Cristina da Silva Faria, Mariandry del Vale Rodriguez Rodriguez & Jairo Lisboa Rodrigues

  2. Instituto Federal do Norte de Minas Gerais, Salinas, MG, 39560-000, Brazil

    Luiz Fernando Oliveira Maia

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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by ASVdC, HTdS and LFOM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by AOM, MSS and MdVRR, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jairo Lisboa Rodrigues.

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Mourão, A.O., Santos, M.S., da Costa, A.S.V. et al. Assessment of Health Risk and Presence of Metals in Water and Fish Samples from Doce River, Brazil, After Fundão Dam Collapse. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 84, 377–388 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00244-023-00991-6

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