Effects of COVID-19 lockdown and unlock on the health of tropical large river with associated human health risk.

Baisakhi Chakraborty,Biswajit Bera,Sambhunath Roy,Soumik Saha,Pravat Kumar Shit,Sumana Bhattacharjee,Partha Pratim Adhikary,Debashish Sengupta

doi:10.1007/s11356-021-17881-w

Abstract

River Damodar (India) is one of the most significant tropical large rivers and this river is carrying predominantly industrial effluents, urban sewage, and non-degradable chemical agricultural fertilizers. Several industries, cities, and townships directly depend on this important river throughout the year. It is highly essential to evaluate its surface water quality, characteristics, and improvement status during the COVID-19 lockdown and unlock phases. The major objectives of the present study are to analyse changing nature of heavy metals (Zn, Cd, Pb, Ni, Cr, and Fe) and microbial load (TVC, TC, and FC) of river water and to identify heavy metals impact on water quality and human health in pre, during, and after unlocking of COVID-19 lockdown. Here, a total of 33 water samples have been collected in the pre-lockdown, lockdown, and unlock phases. The results showed that decreasing trend of the microbial load was found in the lockdown phase. Heavy metal pollution index (HPI) illustrated that all samples are highly polluted (HPI > 150) during the pre-lockdown phase, while during the lockdown phase; HPI showed that around 54.54% of samples have been positively changed (low pollution level). During the unlock phase, 45.45% of samples were again amplified to the high pollution level. Pearson’s correlation coefficient and hierarchical cluster analysis indicated strong relation among heavy metals with faecal coliform at a 0.05% level of significance. Noncarcinogenic hazard index (HI) shows the higher possibility of health risk (HI > 1) particularly for children in all the phases and during the lockdown phase, 36.36% of samples showed no possible health risk for adults (HI < 1). However, HI of dermal contact showed no possible health risk for children and adults in the assessment periods. This applied research can definitely assist planners and administrators in making effective solutions regarding public health.

Highlights

It has become a great environmental issue that deterioration of surface water quality is being increased day by day worldwide (John et al 2014; Zhaoshi et al 2017)
Heavy metals of river water in pre lockdown period showed that the mean ± Sd concentration of Zn was 39,845.45 ± 6280.34 and Cd was 10.20 ± 1.77
The mean value of all heavy metals crossed their standard limit of concentration in drinking water according to BIS (2012) in all samples of pre lockdown

Summary

Introduction

It has become a great environmental issue that deterioration of surface water quality is being increased day by day worldwide (John et al 2014; Zhaoshi et al 2017). Increasing pollution load of industrial, urban, agricultural, and transport declines the natural quality of surface water (Karunanidhi et al 2020a, b; Zou et al 2018). For the past few decades, the aquatic environment is being faced with hazardous heavy metals pollution. Promotes toxic metal contamination to the aquatic environment. Mixing heavy metals with water will bring serious negative effects on utilization of household water, agro-farming, industrial, or urban purposes (Akhilesh et al 2009). Toxicity of heavy metals could exist for a longer time period in the environment and, it leads to a hazardous impact on living organisms

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