Health Risk Assessment of Some Heavy Metals in Groundwater Samples in Rada'a City, Yemen

Abstract

Groundwater is an important source of domestic drinking water supply, and groundwater quality assessment is necessary to reduce pollution to acceptable levels. Therefore, this study aims to determine the concentrations of heavy metals (HM) (Cr, Cd, Cu, Ni, Mn, Fe, and Zn) in the groundwater of Rada'a City and to evaluate the health risk. Groundwater samples were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The following average concentrations (mg/l) were determined in the groundwater 0.01035, 0.01702, 0.043718, and 0.03652 for Cu, Ni, Mn, and Zn were concentration values lower than the World Health Organization acceptable limit (WHO) 2, 0,07,0.4, and 4 for Cu, Ni, Mn, and Zn, respectively, but at some locations in the study area, concentration values were found to be above the acceptable limit 0.3 (mg/l) for Fe, the average concentrations were 0.42567 (mg/l). Based on the HM concentrations, the health risk was classified as non-carcinogenic. The health risk indices (HRI) were < 1 for all HMs in the groundwater samples, indicating no health risk. In addition, a high carcinogenic risk (Probability of Cancer Risk, PCR) of 4.42 × 10−4 on average was found from drinking water consumption, while the acceptable range for cancer risk is ≤ 1 × 10−6 to 1 × 10−4.