Abstract
Chemical pollution in the transboundary Langat River in Malaysia is common both from point and non-point sources. Therefore, the water treatment plants (WTPS) at the Langat River Basin have experienced frequent shutdown incidents. However, the Langat River is one of the main sources of drinking water to almost one-third of the population in Selangor state. Meanwhile, several studies have reported a high concentration of Arsenic (As) in the Langat River that is toxic if ingested via drinking water. However, this is a pioneer study that predicts the As concentration in the Langat River based on time-series data from 2005–2014 to estimate the health risk associated with As ingestion via drinking water at the Langat River Basin. Several time-series prediction models were tested and Gradient Boosted Tree (GBT) gained the best result. This GBT model also fits better to predict the As concentration until December 2024. The mean concentration of As in the Langat River for both 2014 and 2024, as well as the carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health risks of As ingestion via drinking water, were within the drinking water quality standards proposed by the World Health Organization and Ministry of Health Malaysia. However, the ingestion of trace amounts of As over a long period might be detrimental to human health because of its non-biodegradable characteristics. Therefore, it is important to manage the drinking water sources to minimise As exposure risks to human health.
Highlights
IntroductionPublisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
Many studies have reported As exposure risks to human health via environmental media, especially As ingestion via drinking water and dietary consumption [4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
The mean As concentration, 3.73 ± 1.97 μg/L (Table 3), in the Langat River was within the river and drinking water quality standards proposed by the Ministry of Health (MOH) 10 μg/L, the World Health Organization (WHO) 10 μg/L, and the United States
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Apart from natural sources, industrialization, urbanization, and other anthropogenic activities have contributed to the As concentration in the environment and enhanced the As exposure risks to human health [17]. In the Langat River Basin in Malaysia, several studies have reported a high concentration of As in the river both from natural and man-made sources. Res. Public Health 2021, 18, 7997 concentration will contribute to managing the pollution reduction in the Langat River as well as reducing the As exposure risks to human health. This study used the time-series data of As concentration in the Langat River (2005–2014) and predicted As concentration until December 2024 along with estimating the As exposure risks to human health via ingestion to suggest effective leadership roles of the relevant stakeholders for better drinking water management
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