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Health risk assessment due to fluoride exposure from groundwater in rural areas of Agra, India: Monte Carlo simulation

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Abstract

The present study deals with the assessment of the fluoride concentration from 60 different spatially distributed well locations and associated health risks to rural residents in the Achhnera block of Agra, Western Uttar Pradesh, India. Monte Carlo simulation and sensitivity analysis were applied to quantify uncertainties in risk estimation. Assessment of the human health risk was carried out using computations based on fluoride ingestion (EDIing), dermal absorption of fluoride (EDIder) and hazard quotient (HQ) in all three categorized groups, i.e., infants, children, and adults. Fluoride concentration analyzed was found to be ranging between 0.15 and 2.50 mg/L with an average value of 1.51 mg/L. More than 58% of samples analyzed surpassed the permissible level as per drinking water specifications. From the model obtained for non-carcinogenic risk due to water ingestion, values of IRw range between 55.4% and 62.5% in all the three exposure groups, while that of Cw ranges between 37% and 42.8%. Based on the HQ investigation it was found that infants were at maximum risk followed by children and the least affected were adults. Results showed that based on the sensitivity analysis, a definition of the probability distributions of CW, IRw, EF and SA is presented as the main factor to improve the accuracy of the result.

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Acknowledgements

The principal author (Mr. Shahjad Ali) would like to thank the Director of Anand Engineering College, Agra, and Department of Environment Science and Engineering, IIT (ISM Dhanbad), India, for providing all the facilities for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Science, Anand Engineering College, Agra, India

    S. Ali

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Zakir Husain College of Engineering and Technology, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India

    Saif U. Khan

  3. Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, India

    S. K. Gupta & A. Sinha

  4. Department of Applied Science, Bundelkhand Institute of Engineering and Technology (BIET), Jhansi, India

    M. K. Gupta

  5. Department of Environmental Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    A. Abbasnia

  6. Department of Environmental Health Engineering, Neyshabur University of Medical Sciences, Neyshabur, Iran

    A. A. Mohammadi

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  1. S. Ali
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  3. S. K. Gupta
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  4. A. Sinha
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Correspondence to A. A. Mohammadi.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Editorial responsibility: Josef Trögl.

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Ali, S., Khan, S.U., Gupta, S.K. et al. Health risk assessment due to fluoride exposure from groundwater in rural areas of Agra, India: Monte Carlo simulation. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 18, 3665–3676 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-020-03084-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-020-03084-2

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