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Risk assessment of heavy metals in drinking water on the human health, Assiut City, and its environs, Egypt

  • S. I. Geology of Africa
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Abstract

The continuous urbanization and industrialization in many parts of the Assiut City have led to the incidence of elevated concentrations of heavy metal (HM) in soil, surface water, and groundwater. Nine HMs (As, Mn, Pb, Fe, Cr, Ni, Zn, Cd, and Cu) were investigated in 35 drinking water samples in Assiut City and its villages. In this study, the HMs are higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline for drinking water and so were not acceptable. The chronic daily intake (CDIingestion) values of these metals appeared according to the order of As > Mn > Pb> Fe > Cr > Ni > Zn > Cd > Cu. The rating of human health hazard by using the hazard quotient (HQ) values had desirable limits, represented to be non-carcinogenic to humans by oral intake and dermal surface assimilation of water. In addition, the HIdermal values are almost negligible compared with those of HIingestion, reflecting the great concern of ingestion pathway than other exposure pathways, where the HI of all metals by ingestion is more than 200 times higher dermal contact. The results of carcinogenic risk for Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn were less than the acceptable limit (10−6), while Co is not detected in all samples. Regarding the target cancer rate (TCR), 91.62% of carcinogenic values are probably attributed to As, which is classified as a human carcinogen followed by Ni (with TCR of 5.43%), Cr (2.81%), Cd (0.13%), and Pb (0.01%), while other HMs as Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn have no carcinogenic adverse health effect. Using this study as a database for the groundwater-drinking and surface standards should be revised for different countries to show the intake rates of other water resources. Government should pay attention to improve the water quality of Assiut City and its vicinities by reducing the causes of drinking water contamination with HMs.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the labs of National Research Centre, Egypt, for assist in chemical analyses of samples.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Geology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Assiut Branch, Assiut, Egypt

    Elmontaser M. Seleem & Alaa Mostafa

  2. WASCO Petroleum Company, Kafr Saad, Egypt

    Mohammed Mokhtar

  3. Geological Sciences Department, National Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt

    Salman A. Salman

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  1. Elmontaser M. Seleem
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  2. Alaa Mostafa
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  4. Salman A. Salman
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Contributions

AM contributed in sample preparation, chemical investigation, interpretation, and manuscript writing. SS contributed in sample preparation, chemical analyses, modelling, interpretation, and manuscript writing. ES contributed in field sampling and manuscript writing. MM contributed in field sampling, sample preparation, chemical analyses, interpretation, and manuscript writing.

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Correspondence to Elmontaser M. Seleem.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on New Advances and Research Results on the Geology of Africa

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Seleem, E.M., Mostafa, A., Mokhtar, M. et al. Risk assessment of heavy metals in drinking water on the human health, Assiut City, and its environs, Egypt. Arab J Geosci 14, 427 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-06784-2

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