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Health Risk Assessment of Arsenic, Manganese, and Iron from Drinking Water for High School Children

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Abstract

Arsenic (As) is one of the major pollutants of groundwater in many developing countries including Bangladesh, and it poses a significant health risk to humans. This study aims to assess the potential health threat to school children through As-contaminated drinking water. For this analysis, 180 samples of water from tubewells located in high school premises in southwestern Bangladesh were analyzed for As and other elements such as iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), calcium (Ca), and magnesium (Mg). Also examined were the physicochemical parameters including, pH, electrical conductivity (EC), total dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity, chloride, and hardness. The results revealed that groundwater is slightly alkaline and very hard. The mean As concentration in drinking water was 71.06 ± 66.47 μg L−1 (range: 1–250 μg L−1), which was 7-fold higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) provisional guideline value (10 μg L−1). Human health risk assessment was evaluated using hazard quotient (HQ) for As, Fe and Mn, and the cancer risk (CR) assessment for As only. The values of As for HQ and CR (HQ and CR were up to 9.04 and 4.1 × 10−3 for boys and 9.82 and 4.4 × 10−3 for girls, respectively), revealed that children are susceptible to higher risks. The risk was slightly higher in girls than boys were. No health risk was observed in the children when they consumed drinking water containing Mn and Fe. The school-going children are at the greatest threat from As-containing drinking water on school premises, and this situation requires urgent attention to ensure safe potable water in As-endemic areas.

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Data Availability

Data presented in this manuscript that accompany the text of the article. This dataset is the result of field based studies. It has not previously been published and can be used to verify the conclusions presented in this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the authority of the Zonal Laboratory, Khulna, Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), Bangladesh for providing us with the appropriate laboratory facilities. We also acknowledge the assistance from the field workers for collecting the samples.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from any funding agencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Global Centre for Environmental Remediation (GCER), College of Engineering, Science and Environment, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia

    Md. Aminur Rahman & Mohammad Mahmudur Rahman

  2. Department of Public Health Engineering (DPHE), Zonal Laboratory, 9100, Khulna, Bangladesh

    Md. Aminur Rahman

  3. Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Innovation Academy of South China Sea Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Sazal Kumar

  4. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Sazal Kumar

  5. School of Engineering Global Innovation Centre for Advanced Nanomaterials, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia

    Dane Lamb

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  1. Md. Aminur Rahman
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  2. Sazal Kumar
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  3. Dane Lamb
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  4. Mohammad Mahmudur Rahman
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Contributions

MAR: conceptual, investigation, visualisation, formal analysis, writing (Original draft). SK: formal analysis and writing (reviewing and editing). DL: writing (reviewing and editing). MMR: supervision, writing (reviewing and editing), and resources.

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Correspondence to Md. Aminur Rahman or Mohammad Mahmudur Rahman.

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Highlights

• Arsenic and other trace metals pollution in drinking water from high school premises.

• Arsenic contaminated water has also unsafe levels of Fe and Mn.

• Khulna is highly contaminated from most of the studied parameters.

• Girls are at a higher risk than boys from arsenic consumption.

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Rahman, M.A., Kumar, S., Lamb, D. et al. Health Risk Assessment of Arsenic, Manganese, and Iron from Drinking Water for High School Children. Water Air Soil Pollut 232, 269 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-021-05212-1

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