Groundwater Fluoride Contamination and Probabilistic Health-risk Assessment in Fluoride Endemic Areas of the Lower Satluj Basin, Punjab, India

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-466491/v1

Download PDF

Research Article

Groundwater Fluoride Contamination and Probabilistic Health-risk Assessment in Fluoride Endemic Areas of the Lower Satluj Basin, Punjab, India

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-466491/v1

This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License

Version 1

posted

You are reading this latest preprint version

Groundwater fluoride contamination in some parts of the study region was long recognized as a water quality issue. The results of WQI showed that 85% and 15% of sampling sites fall within the class of “good” and “poor” quality, respectively. Non-carcinogenic health risk (NCHR) assessment (using Hazard quotient (HQ)), and sensitivity analysis for three age groups were also carried out using the Monte Carlo simulation technique. The estimated levels of HQ_oral were greater in magnitude than those estimated from HQ_dermal, thus the main source for fluoride toxicity is oral ingestion. Amongst the three age groups studied, children >female >male were found to be more prone to NCHR with HQ_oral ranging from (0.13-5.45), (0.07-2.97), and (0.06-2.51), respectively. Sensitivity analyses indicated that fluoride concentration, ingestion rate, shower exposure time, and fractional skin contact with water were the most relevant variables in the model to reduce the potential health effect.

Environmental Engineering

Environmental Policy

Dermal absorption

Endemic

Fluoride

Health risk

Oral ingestion

Due to technical limitations, full-text HTML conversion of this manuscript could not be completed. However, the manuscript can be downloaded and accessed as a PDF.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics results of fluoride

*Physico-chemical Parameters*	*Min.*	*Max.*		*Mean*	*Std. Dev.*	*Acceptable Limits as per* *(WHO 2011)*	*Acceptable Limits as per* *(BIS IS: 10500)*
pH	7.41	7.88		7.74	0.08	6.5-8.0	6.5-8.5
Electrical Conductivity, EC	439.38		1159.46	710.29	197.99	1000	750
Chloride, Cl^-	20.25	123.15		48.10	28.46	600	250
Nitrate, NO₃^-	2.98	78.76		27.32	23.29	50	45
Sulphate, SO₄^2-	9.77	153.38		51.72	36.15	250	200
Total Hardness, TH	183.92	343.92		251.65	41.46	500	200
Potassium, K⁺	1.91	39.98		11.53	10.51	-	-
Sodium, Na⁺	11.78	205.92		63.47	44.73	200	-
Calcium, Ca²⁺	33.81	67.15		53.50	8.21	200	75
Silicon Dioxide/Silica, SiO₂	22.00	28.75		25.71	2.07	-	-
Magnesium, Mg²⁺	13.34	46.85		28.34	10.62	-	30
Bicarbonate, HCO₃^-	193.50	376.23		298.25	60.34	500	200
Fluoride, F^-	0.13	4.91		0.78	1.25	1.5	1

*Units in mg/L except for pH and EC (μS/cm)

Table 2. Trend analysis and its quantification

*Sampling Locations*	τ	P	S
*Sampling Locations*	*Fluoride*
Ahmedpur	-0.164	0.280	-0.006
Bhalan	-0.167	0.353	-0.005
Brahmpur	0.028	0.900	0.000
Chak Dera	0.589	0.001	0.026
Dhair (Dher)	0.102	0.578	0.003
Saijowal	0.037	0.808	0.001
Singha	0.026	0.909	0.000
Soara	0.774	< 0.0001	0.011
Kakrali	0.003	1.000	0.000
Dumewal	0.298	0.130	0.004
Nurpur Bedi	-0.159	0.370	-0.010
Bara Chaunta	0.093	0.522	0.003
Hardo Namoh	0.221	0.268	0.004
Ropar	0.309	0.108	0.011

*τ - Kendall’s Tau; P - p-value; S - Sen’s Slope; bold values indicate increasing trends

Table 3. Default values of parameters used in HQ_Fluorideanalysis for oral and dermal absorption

*Parameters Used*	*Units*	*Distribution Type*	*Age Group*			*References*
*Parameters Used*	*Units*	*Distribution Type*	*Children*	*Female*	*Male*	*References*
Skin surface area, SS_A	cm²	Lognormal	7422±1.25^*	20300±1.10^*	17300±1.10^*	Zhang et al. 2017; Karunanidhi et al. 2020
Body weight, B_W	kg	Lognormal	16.68±1.50^*	54.50±9.80^*	68.50±12.10^*	Zhang et al. 2017; Karunanidhi et al. 2020
Daily ingestion rate, D_WIR_W	L/day	Uniform	Min: 0.3 Max: 0.5	Min: 1 Max: 1.5	Min: 1 Max: 1.5	Miri et al. 2018
Average lifespan, T_Avg	days	Fixed value	2190	9125	9125	Felsenfeld and Roberts 1991
Duration of exposure, E_D	year	Fixed value	6	30	30	Felsenfeld and Roberts 1991
Frequency of exposure, E_F	day/year	Triangular	Min: 180 Mode: 345 Max: 365	Min: 180 Mode: 345 Max: 365	Min: 180 Mode: 345 Max: 365	Mohammadi et al. 2017
Coefficient of Skin permeation, K_D	cm/h	Fixed value	0.001	0.001	0.001	Mohebbi et al. 2013
Shower exposure time, S_ET	h/day	Lognormal	0.13±0.0085^*	0.13±0.0085^*	0.13±0.0085^*	WHO 2004; Mokhtari et al. 2016
Fractional surface skin contacts with water, F_W	dimensionless	Uniform	Min: 0.4 Max: 0.9	Min: 0.4 Max: 0.9	Min: 0.4 Max: 0.9	WHO 2004; Mokhtari et al. 2016
Reference oral dosage, R_fD_o	mg/kg/day	Fixed value	0.06			WHO 2004; Ozsvath 2009
Reference dermal dosage, R_fD_dermal	mg/kg/day	Fixed value	5.82x10^-2			Staff 2001; WHO 2004 Mukherjee et al. 2019

* mean± standard deviation

Table 4. WQI and water type at the sampling locations

*Sampling Locations*	*WQI*	*Water Type*
Ahmedpur	139.40	Poor
Bhalan	108.47	Poor
Brahmpur	55.44	Good
Chak Dera	76.90	Good
Dhair	81.57	Good
Saijowal	89.79	Good
Singha	65.54	Good
Soara	87.61	Good
Kakrali	72.45	Good
Dumewal	60.83	Good
Nurpur Bedi	84.07	Good
Bara Chaunta	62.23	Good
Hardo Namoh	55.99	Good
Ropar	67.64	Good

Table 5. Non-carcinogenic health risks assessment of Fluoride exposure

*Sampling Locations*	*HQ_oral*			*HQ_dermal*			*THI*
*Sampling Locations*	*Male*	*Female*	*Children*	*Male*	*Female*	*Children*	*Male*	*Female*	*Children*
Ahmedpur	2.51	2.97	5.45	0.0267	0.0316	0.1159	2.54	3.00	5.57
Bhalan	0.80	0.95	1.73	0.0085	0.0101	0.0369	0.81	0.96	1.77
Brahmpur	0.18	0.21	0.38	0.0019	0.0022	0.0081	0.18	0.21	0.39
Chak Dera	0.25	0.29	0.54	0.0026	0.0031	0.0114	0.25	0.29	0.55
Dhair	0.18	0.21	0.39	0.0019	0.0023	0.0083	0.18	0.21	0.40
Saijowal	0.13	0.16	0.29	0.0014	0.0017	0.0061	0.13	0.16	0.30
Singha	0.08	0.10	0.18	0.0009	0.0011	0.0039	0.08	0.10	0.18
Soara	0.23	0.27	0.49	0.0024	0.0028	0.0104	0.23	0.27	0.50
Kakrali	0.22	0.26	0.48	0.0023	0.0028	0.0101	0.22	0.26	0.49
Dumewal	0.06	0.07	0.13	0.0006	0.0007	0.0027	0.06	0.07	0.13
Nurpur Bedi	0.11	0.13	0.24	0.0012	0.0014	0.0050	0.11	0.13	0.25
Bara Chaunta	0.33	0.40	0.73	0.0036	0.0042	0.0154	0.33	0.40	0.75
Hardo Namoh	0.16	0.19	0.36	0.0018	0.0021	0.0076	0.16	0.19	0.37
Ropar	0.24	0.28	0.52	0.0026	0.0030	0.0111	0.24	0.28	0.53

Download PDF

Version 1

posted

You are reading this latest preprint version

Groundwater Fluoride Contamination and Probabilistic Health-risk Assessment in Fluoride Endemic Areas of the Lower Satluj Basin, Punjab, India

Status:

Version 1

Abstract

Figures

Full-text

Tables

Supplementary Files

Status:

Version 1