Abstract
BackgroundIn the last few decades, the air, water, and soil are contaminated due to different anthropogenic activities and severely affect the environmental quality. Pollution is the harmful effect and creates undesirable changes in the land use and land cover pattern. The growth of urbanization leads to the degradation of the ecosystem and ultimately affects the living and non-living organisms. In view of these, the present investigation is carried out to assess the heavy metal pollution in major towns due to the impact of urbanization in Kannur district and desirable conclusions were drawn.ResultsThe results shows that higher level of heavy metal pollution is observed in major towns of Kannur district.ConclusionThe heavy metal contamination in the major towns of Kannur district is mainly due the anthropogenic activities. The discharge of domestic effluents and industrial waste is the major source of heavy metal pollution. In-depth studies and proper waste management plans are needed to decrease the level of heavy metal contamination prevailing in the study area.
Highlights
In the last few decades, the air, water, and soil are contaminated due to different anthropogenic activities and severely affect the environmental quality
The main objective of the study is to find out the impact of urbanization in the heavy metal pollution of Kannur district, Kerala, and the results were discussed in detail
The pollution indices such as enrichment factor, contamination factor, geo-accumulation index, pollution load index, and degree of contamination are summarized in Tables 8, 9, 10 and 11, respectively
Summary
In the last few decades, the air, water, and soil are contaminated due to different anthropogenic activities and severely affect the environmental quality. The growth of urbanization leads to the degradation of the ecosystem and affects the living and non-living organisms. The relationship between land use change and environmental quality has been affected by the rapid rate of urbanization, industrialization, rural land conversion, and unexpected growth of population which can cause the degradation in the environmental quality. The fast phase of urbanization causes series environmental issues and diverse kinds of pollution with evolution of time and technology and is sensitive in the accumulation of heavy metal contamination in both spatial and temporal aspects. The potential risk caused by environmental pollution and the degradation of different environmental matrices have turned out to be an issue of global significance. The elevated levels of heavy metals in the environment cause series health risks to the living and non-living organisms (Santos et al 2005). Many researches like Bryan and Langston (1992), Tam and Wong (1996), Tam and Wong (1997), Khan et al (2000), McGrath et al (2001), Alam et al (2003), Veeresh et al (2003), Banerjee (2003), Sharma et al (2004), Krishna and Govil (2004), Rattan et al (2005), Ray et al (2006), Abbas
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
