Estimation of trace and toxic metals in marine biota and associated health risk assessment in Thane Creek, Mumbai, India

Abstract

Effluents released from various industries and domestic sewage can contaminate the seawater leading to serious impacts on marine biota. The present study aims for the estimation of trace and toxic metals concentrations in different marine biota species collected from the Thane creek area, Mumbai, India. Among different metals analyzed, the highest and the least concentration was observed for Fe (9.0–118.3 mg/kg ww) and As (4.7 × 10 −4 –7.8 × 10 −3 mg/kg ww), respectively in most of the marine biota. The toxic metal concentrations observed in the current study are less than the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 1983/1987), World Health Organization (WHO, 1983/1987) limits given for Hg (2 mg/kg ww), Pb (0.5 mg/kg ww) and As (1 mg/kg ww). In the current study, Fe was found to have the highest bio-concentration factor followed by Cu and Zn. Crab has relatively higher bio-concentration factor for most of the metals (except for Se, Hg) as compared to fish samples analyzed. Se-health benefit values were found to be positive indicating less health effects due to Hg exposure from marine biota. The estimated hazard quotient (HQ) value was observed to be highest for Cu in crabs (5.6E-02). However, the Hazard Index (HI) values of all studied marine biota species are <1, indicating no harmful health effects from the consumption of collected biota species in Thane Creek. • Among the most toxic metals, Pb has the highest concentration followed by Hg. • Se-health benefit value is found to be positive for all analyzed species. • Crab has the highest bioconcentration factor for most of the studied metals. • Hazard quotient values for toxic metals are found to be less than unity.