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Pollution and probabilistic human health risk assessment of potentially toxic elements in the soil-water-plant system in the Bolkar mining district, Niğde, south-central Turkey

  • Challenges in Managing and Risk Assessment of Emerging Environmental Pollutants
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Abstract

Globally, potentially toxic elements (PTEs) are regarded as an important group of pollutants for the wider environment because of their intrinsic toxicity and probable accumulation in the soil-water-plant system. In this regard, this study assessed the pollution levels and probable human health risks of PTEs in the soil-water-plant system in the Bolkar mining district of the Niğde Province in south-central Turkey. Pollution assessment using contamination factor, enrichment factor, index of geoaccumulation, and soil pollution index reveals moderate to extremely high pollution of PTEs in the soil, exposing the soils to extreme toxicity levels. The areas that fall under the toxic to extremely toxic categories are in proximity to the ore slags and agricultural lands towards the central and southern domains of the study area. The water hazard index (WHI) values indicate that 100% of the samples collected in both winter and fall seasons are of extreme toxicity (WHI > 15). Arsenic is the dominant contaminant among the PTEs in the soil and water samples. The bioconcentration factor values of the PTEs in most of the fruit plants are > 1, indicating very high levels of element transfer from the soil and water to the plants. The probabilistic human health risk assessment involved exposure to arsenic in groundwater (a major pathway to humans) since it is the only carcinogenic element in this study. The estimated daily intake of arsenic-contaminated water exceeds the safe limit of 5 × 10−8 mg/kg/day. About 33.3% and 55.6% of the groundwater samples have higher hazard quotient and carcinogenic risk values of arsenic in the winter and fall seasons, respectively. This implies that the people are more exposed to the carcinogenic effects of drinking arsenic-contaminated water.

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Acknowledgements

Mr. Gökhan KELEBEK is sincerely acknowledged for assisting in sample collection. The second author is grateful to the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) for the continuous financial support as a doctoral research fellow.

Availability of data and material (data transparency)

All data used in the study will be readily available to the public.

Code availability (software application or custom code)

All software applications used in this study were the licensed software applications used by Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, Turkey.

Funding

The geochemical analysis in this study was financially supported by the Scientific Research Office (BAP) of Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, Turkey with the project No: FEB 2007/07.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological Engineering, Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University, Main Campus, 51240, Niğde, Turkey

    Abdurrahman Lermi & Emmanuel Daanoba Sunkari

  2. Department of Geological Engineering, Faculty of Mineral Resources Technology, University of Mines and Technology, P.O. Box 237, Tarkwa, Ghana

    Emmanuel Daanoba Sunkari

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  1. Abdurrahman Lermi
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  2. Emmanuel Daanoba Sunkari
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Contributions

Abdurrahman Lermi: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, supervision, writing-original draft preparation, validation, writing-reviewing and editing. Emmanuel Daanoba Sunkari: methodology, software, data curation, writing-original draft preparation, visualization, writing-reviewing and editing.

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Correspondence to Abdurrahman Lermi.

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Highlights

- Pollution assessment reveals moderate to extremely high pollution of PTEs in the soil.

- Water hazard index values indicate that 100% of the samples are of extreme toxicity.

- Bioconcentration factors show high levels of element transfer from the soil and water to the plants.

- About 55.6% of the samples have high carcinogenic risk values of arsenic in drinking water.

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Lermi, A., Sunkari, E.D. Pollution and probabilistic human health risk assessment of potentially toxic elements in the soil-water-plant system in the Bolkar mining district, Niğde, south-central Turkey. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 25080–25092 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-15398-w

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