Abstract
Studying the quality and health risks of groundwater is of great significance for sustainable water resources utilization, especially in arid and semi-arid areas around the world. The current study is carried out to evaluate the quality and potential health risks of groundwater in the Tongchuan area on the Loess Plateau, northwest China. Water quality index (WQI) and hydrochemical correlation analysis were implemented to understand the status of groundwater quality. Daily average exposure dosages through the oral and dermal contact exposure pathways were taken into consideration to calculate the health risks to the human body. Additionally, graphical approaches such as Piper diagram, Durov diagram and GIS mapping were used to help better understand the results of this study. The WQI approach showed that 77.1% of the samples were of excellent quality. The most significant parameters affecting water quality were NO3−, F−, and Cr6+. The health risk assessment results showed that 27.1% and 54.2% of the samples lead to non-carcinogenic risks through oral intake for adults and children, respectively. In contrast, 12.5% of the groundwater samples would result in carcinogenic risks to the residents. This study showed that the WQI method needs to be supplemented by a health risk evaluation to obtain comprehensive results for groundwater quality protection and management in the Tongchuan area.
Highlights
Groundwater is an important source for drinking and other various purposes for the majority of the population around the world, especially in arid and semiarid regions where precipitation and runoff are rare [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Groundwater quality data were first checked for reliability and accuracy by calculating the correlation between electrical conductivity (EC) and the sum of cations on one hand and with the sum of anions on the other hand
The results show a good correlation with R2 > 0.8
Summary
Groundwater is an important source for drinking and other various purposes for the majority of the population around the world, especially in arid and semiarid regions where precipitation and runoff are rare [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Using a comprehensive water quality index assessment, Wu and Sun [38] found that 60% of sampled water was unsuitable for drinking in the alluvial plain located in mid-west China Chen and her colleagues [27] used a triangular fuzzy numbers approach to assess health risk by As and CaF2 in groundwater and found that their concentrations were higher in the shallow groundwater, which exceeded the acceptable limit (1 × 10−6 ) set by the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the P.R. China for Cr6+ and As [30]. This study aims to characterize the major pollutants in shallow groundwater, to check their concentration based on the depth of wells, to determine the water quality index and make its distribution map, and to assess the water’s potential risks to human health. Approaches system helped approaches to better understand results of this study
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