Abstract
Kalpani River, Pakistan is an important stream that collects more than two third of the untreated domestic, commercial, industrial, and sewerage water, agricultural overflow, and other unwanted effluents of the surrounding area. These effluents have degraded the overall quality of this river water. The current study aims to examine the concentration of selected heavy metal (HM) contamination in Kalpani River sediments. The HMs studied were Pb, Cd, Zn, Ni, Fe, and Cu. Sediment samples were taken from nine selected locations (labeled as P1, P2, P3, … P9) and tested for HM contamination. The HMs contamination level in the sediment was computed using the contamination factor (CF), pollution load index (PLI), and geo-accumulation index (Igeo). All three indicators revealed that the Kalpani River in Mardan city is polluted with hazardous HMs such as Cd, Pb, and Zn. Pb, Ni, Fe, and Cu CF levels in sediment samples ranged from low (< 1) to moderate (1–3). However, the CF values for Cd and Zn indicated being highly polluted (> 6). The PLI values along the Kalpani River varied considerably and were observed lower upstream (P1 and P2, i.e., 0.821), highest (1.229) at the middle course, and lower (0.897) downstream. The Igeo for the studied HMs ranged from moderately to strongly polluted. The primary anthropogenic sources responsible for HM pollution in the Kalpani River were improper waste dumping, untreated sewage urban and industrial wastewater into the river, and excessive pesticide usage.
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The University of Peshawar (UoP), Peshawar, Pakistan, and the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Islamabad, Pakistan, provided financial support for this research.
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Muhammad Jamal Nasir: conceptualization, writing—original draft, software, visualization, methodology, supervision, and reviewing. Abdul Wahab: data collection, draft preparation, software, and data curation. Tehreem Ayaz: writing, software, visualization, reviewing, editing, and formatting. Sardar Khan: supervision and reviewing. Amir Zeb Khan: reviewing and editing. Ming Lei: reviewing and editing.
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Nasir, M.J., Wahab, A., Ayaz, T. et al. Assessment of heavy metal pollution using contamination factor, pollution load index, and geoaccumulation index in Kalpani River sediments, Pakistan. Arab J Geosci 16, 143 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-023-11231-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-023-11231-5