Elsevier

Geochemistry

Volume 81, Issue 1, April 2021, 125684
Geochemistry

Geochemical appraisal of fluoride contaminated groundwater in the vicinity of a coal mining region: Spatial variability and health risk assessment

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemer.2020.125684Get rights and content

Abstract

The present study focuses on the geochemical characteristics and quality of potable groundwater in mining area, particularly with reference to fluoride (F). Spatial variability in physicochemical parameters of groundwater samples (32) collected from Katras block coal mine area was analysed. Parameters such as total hardness, total alkalinity, calcium (Ca2+), sodium (Na+), bicarbonate (HCO3-) and concentration of fluoride (F) were found to be exceeding the Bureau of Indian standard (BIS) guidelines. The contributions of major cations and anions were found to be in the order of Ca2+ (44 %) > Na+ (40 %) > Mg2+ (15 %) > K+ (1%) and HCO3- (50 %) > Cl (34 %) > SO42- (14 %) respectively, and aggregates of minor anions such as nitrate and fluoride constituted approximately 2% respectively. Piper trilinear diagram suggested dominance of Ca-Mg-Cl, CaCl and NaCl type of water, resulting in hard brackish water. Alkaline pH and high bicarbonate concentration provide suitable conditions for release of fluoride from fluorite and fluorapatite. Water quality index (WQI) indicated that most of the samples (53 %) of the study area belonged to "poor water", 41 % to "good water" and one sample was categorized as "excellent" type of water. Moreover, only one sample was classified as "not suitable for drinking purposes" with WQI value of 322.94. Health risk assessment for ingestion and dermal routes were carried out for various age groups based on chronic daily dose and hazard quotient, and results indicated that fluoride uptake through ingestion was more severe. Infants (6−12 months) were found to be at a higher risk when compared to higher age group population. To improve the existing groundwater quality and reduce associated human risks, suitable water management measures is also recommended.

Introduction

Groundwater accounts for 97 % of total freshwater present on the Earth’s surface and serves as the major source of potable water. In India, approximately 85 % of domestic water demand and 50 % of urban water requirements are met by groundwater resources (Ayoob and Gupta, 2006; Ali et al., 2017). Excessive exploitation, unequal recharge of groundwater and occurrence of several geogenic elements such as arsenic, iron, fluoride and other heavy metals leads to groundwater contamination (Ali et al., 2016; Herath et al., 2016; Vetrimurugan et al., 2017).

Fluoride is a major contaminant found in groundwater in India. Presence of fluoride (F) in groundwater exhibits both beneficial and detrimental effects; F concentration in the range of 1.0–1.5 mg/L is deemed essential for the development of teeth and matrix of skeletal tissues whereas concentrations greater than 1.5 mg/L (permissible limit) results in dental and skeletal fluorosis (Ayoob and Gupta, 2006; WHO, 2011; Yadav et al., 2019). High fluoride concentrations have been reported from several countries such as India, China, Africa, West Indies, Spain, Poland, Italy amongst others, with more than 260 million people being estimated to be affected globally (Huang et al., 2017). In India, 230 districts spread across 19 states have fluoride concentrations above the permissible limit, of which the states of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Telangana, Assam, Haryana and Jharkhand are critically affected (Susheela, 1999; Meenakshi and Maheshwari, 2006; Yadav et al., 2019; Adimalla et al., 2019a). These geographic regions contain high concentration of fluoride in groundwater due to the occurrence of fluoride-bearing minerals such as fluorite, fluoroapatite, muscovite, biotite, amphiboles and hornblende which may undergo dissolution depending on the climatic conditions, the residence time of groundwater and distance from the recharge point (Raj and Shaji, 2016).

It is evident from the literature that concentration of fluoride in groundwater system closely depends upon various water quality parameters such as pH, electrical conductivity, total hardness, total alkalinity, total dissolved solids, magnesium, calcium, sodium, potassium, bicarbonates, chloride, phosphate and sulphate (Apambire et al., 1997; Baghani et al., 2017; Dehghani et al., 2017; Patolia and Sinha, 2017; Rostamia et al., 2017; Samal et al., 2015; Singh et al., 2011). Hydrogeochemical characteristics also influence fluoride concentration in confined aquifers, which in turn affects complex chemical processes that are occurring between lithologic surface and groundwater (Li et al., 2014). Fluoride has been previously reported in coal and categorized as a toxic element (Ghosh et al., 1987; Zhang et al., 2016). Fluoride content in Indian coal generally varies from 10−20 g/tonne (Jha and Jha, 1982). The existence of abandoned and active coal mines, coking coal plants and washing of coal products may incorporate toxic elements into mine water (Zhang et al., 2016; Jha and Jha, 1982; Singh et al., 2011; Sahu, 2019). The untreated fluoride containing mine water discharged from various mines are usually collected in small ponds or released into streams without any treatment. This untreated mine water further contaminates the groundwater system by percolation through soil. Owing to the negative effects of mining activities, it is of prime importance to monitor the quality of groundwater from a public health perspective.

Several studies have reported heavy metal contamination in the study area, none of which dealt with fluoride contamination in both surface and groundwater (Bhakat et al., 2010; Chowdhury et al., 2017; Gupta et al., 2012; Panigrahy et al., 2015; Singh et al., 2011). Moreover, no studies have discussed the health risks associated with F contamination in the study area. The prime objective of the present study was to evaluate the geochemical characteristics, water quality and the status of fluoride toxicity manifested in the form of non-carcinogenic health risk through a multi-exposure pathway. Moreover, results derived from this study could also be utilised by local authorities/district administration for policy decision making process.

Section snippets

Details of the study area and sampling of groundwater

Katras block coal mine area (23° 48.634’- 50.055’ N; 86° 15.611’- 18.714’ E) is situated in Dhanbad district of Jharkhand state in India (Fig. 1). The primary river flowing through Dhanbad district is the Damodar river and the mines present in Dhanbad are situated in the catchment of this river basin. Katras is a part of Jharia coalfield where mining has been operational since the nineteenth century. The study areas selected for this study lie adjacent to the Ramkanali Colliery, Salanpur

Spatial variation of physicochemical characteristics of groundwater

The spatial variability in the physicochemical characteristics of groundwater from Katras block and ionic balance error (IBE) derived from analytical data are provided in Table 3 and Fig. S2 (a–l) and S3 (a–d). The IBE values for most samples (90.6 %) ranged from -10 % to +10 %. Only three samples (two from Shamdih and one from Gandhinagar) showed IBE values outside the desirable limit (Table 3). Furthermore, a summary of descriptive statistics (minimum, maximum, mean and standard deviation)

Physico-chemical characteristics of groundwater

The existence of deep groundwater system, slow groundwater recharge and calcareous aquifers were probably responsible for slightly neutral to alkaline pH in the study area (Mahamat et al., 2017). The variation in the electrical conductivity may be due to dominance of mining activities and large geographical variability (Kumar et al., 2019). It is noteworthy that conductivity values obtained in this study were not found to be detrimental to crop productivity. However, values greater than 3000

Conclusions

This study demonstrates significant variations in the physico-chemical characteristics of groundwater, sampled around the vicinity of coal mining regions. Specifically, parameters such as total hardness, total alkalinity, calcium, sodium, bicarbonate and fluoride were found to be higher than the permissible limit, with calcium (44 %) and bicarbonate (50 %) being the predominant cation and anion. Piper and Durov diagram reveal occurrence of mixed type water wherein weathering, dissolution, ion

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Krishna Yadav: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Validation, Visualization, Writing - original draft. Mohd. Raphi: Data curation, Formal analysis, Validation, Visualization. Sheeja Jagadevan: Conceptualization, Visualization, Supervision, Writing - review & editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by FRS Scheme of IIT(ISM) Dhanbad (Ref No. FRS/86/2014-2015/ESE) and PhD studentship for K.Y. The authors thank DST-FIST for the support to the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad. The authors would like to express their gratitude to Central Research Facility, IIT(ISM) and to Mr. Sitaram Verma (ISM-JRF) for discussions on hydro-chemical facies.

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