Abstract
This study presents deterministic and probabilistic human health risk assessment using Monte Carlo simulations on exposure to an Indian river, Kaveri, which has been contaminated by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). The NSAIDs of concern are naproxen, ibuprofen, aspirin, ketoprofen, and diclofenac. We have considered three exposure scenarios (water ingestion, dermal exposure, and fish ingestion) for four different age groups (0–5, 6–10, 11–18, and 19–70 years). Deterministic risk assessment revealed teenagers to be the most sensitive receptors and water ingestion to be the most crucial pathway contributing to maximum health risk (79 to 86%). Based on the results of Monte Carlo simulations, it was found that the probability of exceeding the deterministic mean risks ranged from 17 to 39% for different exposure routes. High end risk estimates such as 95th percentiles and maximum values of HQ for the entire population did not exceed the USEPA allowable risk. This implies that the NSAIDs at the detected concentrations in the Kaveri river may not pose adverse health effects even in the worst-case scenario. Among the five NSAIDs, diclofenac was found to be the major contributor for health risk. Moreover, the concentration of diclofenac was just one order less than the estimated site-specific threshold concentrations. From sensitivity analysis, the most and the least impactful parameters were found to be water ingestion rate and fish ingestion rate respectively.
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Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request (if applicable).
Abbreviations
- BCF:
-
bio-concentration factor (L/g)
- BW:
-
body weight (kg)
- CDI:
-
chronic daily intake (mg/kg/day)
- Cw :
-
concentration of the contaminant in water (mg/L or mg/cm3)
- Cfish :
-
concentration of the contaminant in fish (mg/g)
- CSSTC :
-
risk-based site-specific threshold concentration (mg/L)
- CR:
-
contact or ingestion rate (L/day)
- CF1 :
-
conversion factor one (0.001) (L/cm3)
- CF2 :
-
conversion factor two (0.001) (kg/g)
- FR:
-
fish consumption rate (g/day)
- f i :
-
fraction of the total risk for each compound -
- Kp :
-
permeability coefficient (cm/h)
- SAevent :
-
skin surface area during the event (of bathing or swimming as appropriate) (cm2)
- t event :
-
time duration of the event (h/day)
- TD:
-
therapeutic dose (mg/day).
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Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India, for providing research facilities to carry out this research work.
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Ramya Srinivasan: conceptualization, investigation of deterministic risk assessment, methodology, interpretation, writing the manuscript, reviewing, and editing.
Bokam Rajasekhar: conceptualization, investigation of probabilistic risk assessment, methodology, algorithm and simulations, results interpretation, writing, reviewing, and editing.
Indumathi M Nambi: conceptualization and supervision
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Srinivasan, R., Rajasekhar, B. & Nambi, I.M. Deterministic and probabilistic health risk assessment for exposure to non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in an Indian river. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 39826–39839 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11897-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11897-4