Abstract
ABSTRACT The present research aimed to examine the soil quality and heavy metals pollution with special emphasis on arsenic (As) contamination around the Rupnagar District of Southeast Punjab, India. A Total of 17 soil samples (S1-S17) from depths of ~5-20 cm were collected from cultivated land, barren land, riverbanks of Sutlej and Sirsa River, and from the vicinity of the industrial area in December 2018 covering an area of 1251 km2. Our first-hand analysis highlights an alarming As enrichment in the sediments (up to 128 mg kg−1). Sediment samples with near-neutral to alkaline pH were found to be enriched with toxic heavy metals including V, Co, Mn, Se, Cu and Fe. The results of statistical analysis including Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Pearson’s correlation and Positive Matrix Factorization Model (PMF) infers that majority of the heavy metal pollution is attributed to anthropogenic and industrial inputs with minor instincts of geogenic sources are also corroborated. The health risk assessment construes no potential health hazards on the inhabitants of the study area upon their exposure to heavy metals through different exposure pathways as all the values of hazard quotient (HQ) and hazard index (HI) were less than 1.
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