Investigating Heavy Metal Contamination in Groundwater of Agricultural Areas: The Case Study of Shekhan, Duhok, Iraq
Received: 14 May 2024 | Revised: 3 June 2024 | Accepted: 6 June 2024 | Online: 25 July 2024
Corresponding author: Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed
Abstract
This study assesses water quality and heavy metal concentrations in 17 main groundwater sources in Duhok City, Iraq's agriculturally vital Shekhan area. It is important to comprehend the possible health concerns associated with heavy metal pollution in this area because of its relevance to food production. With an emphasis placed on heavy metal concentrations in groundwater sources to support public health and sustainable practices, this study provides essential insights into controlling water quality for irrigation and safe consumption. The Water Quality Index (WQI) results ranged from 15.23 to 37.05, indicating good and excellent water quality, well-suited for drinking and agricultural purposes. The results of heavy metals concentration from Copper (Cu), Manganese (Mn), Lead (Pb), and Nickel (Ni) ranged from 0.0002 to 0.0111 ppm, 0.0023 to 0.0187 ppm, 0.0006 to 0.0024 ppm, and 0.007 to 0.032 ppm, respectively. The World Health Organization (WHO) criteria were satisfied by all heavy metal concentrations in the water samples, except Cadmium (Cd), which exceeded the recommended threshold in six analyzed sources and varied from 0.0015 to 0.0158 ppm. The water is appropriate for irrigation and consumption, according to the findings of the heavy metal content analysis and water quality evaluation, while continuous monitoring is needed to guarantee optimum water quality.
Keywords:
water quality, heavy metals, irrigation, drinking water, agricultural areas, public healthDownloads
References
D. Amenu, "Bacteriological and Physicochemical Quality of Well Water Sources," Global Journal of Microbiology and Molecular Sciences, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1–24, 2014.
J. Xiao, L. Wang, L. Deng, and Z. Jin, "Characteristics, sources, water quality and health risk assessment of trace elements in river water and well water in the Chinese Loess Plateau," Science of The Total Environment, vol. 650, pp. 2004–2012, Feb. 2019.
B. Thulin and H. J. Hahn, "Ecology and living conditions of groundwater fauna," Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company, Stockholm, Sweden, Technical Report SKB-TR-08-06, Sep. 2008.
S. Sharma, "A Review on Chemistry of Water Pollution; Chemicals Responsible for Diseases in Living Beings & Their Control," The Research Voyage: An International Bi-Annual Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Research Journal, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 56–72, 2023.
L. Liu, X.-B. Luo, L. Ding, and S.-L. Luo, "Application of Nanotechnology in the Removal of Heavy Metal From Water," in Nanomaterials for the Removal of Pollutants and Resource Reutilization, X. Luo and F. Deng, Eds. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier, 2019, pp. 83–147.
M. Jamshaid, A. Arshad Khan, K. Ahmed, and M. Saleem, "Heavy metal in drinking water its effect on human health and its treatment techniques-a review," International Journal of Biosciences, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 223–240, Apr. 2018.
P. Zhang et al., "Water Quality Degradation Due to Heavy Metal Contamination: Health Impacts and Eco-Friendly Approaches for Heavy Metal Remediation," Toxics, vol. 11, no. 10, Oct. 2023, Art. no. 828.
N. Khatri and S. Tyagi, "Influences of natural and anthropogenic factors on surface and groundwater quality in rural and urban areas," Frontiers in Life Science, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 23–39, Jan. 2015.
J. W. Moore and S. Ramamoorthy, Heavy Metals in Natural Waters: Applied Monitoring and Impact Assessment. New York, NY, USA: Springer, 2012.
E. Craswell, "Fertilizers and nitrate pollution of surface and ground water: an increasingly pervasive global problem," SN Applied Sciences, vol. 3, no. 4, Mar. 2021, Art. no. 518.
P. K. Srivastava, S. K. Singh, M. Gupta, J. K. Thakur, and S. Mukherjee, "Modeling impact of land use change trajectories on groundwater quality using remote sensing and gis," Environmental Engineering and Management Journal, vol. 12, no. 12, pp. 2343–2355, Dec. 2013.
N. S. A. Kassim, S. A. I. S. M. Ghazali, F. Liyana Bohari, and N. A. Z. Abidin, "Assessment of heavy metals in wastewater plant effluent and lake water by using atomic absorption spectrophotometry," Materials Today: Proceedings, vol. 66, pp. 3961–3964, Jan. 2022.
P. Thillaiarasu, A. Murugan, and J. K. Inba, "Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometric Studies on Heavy Metal Contamination in Groundwater in and around Tiruchendur, Tamilnadu, India," Chemical Science Transactions, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 812–818, Apr. 2014.
K. Rehman, F. Fatima, I. Waheed, and M. S. H. Akash, "Prevalence of exposure of heavy metals and their impact on health consequences," Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, vol. 119, no. 1, pp. 157–184, 2018.
M. Balali-Mood, K. Naseri, Z. Tahergorabi, M. R. Khazdair, and M. Sadeghi, "Toxic Mechanisms of Five Heavy Metals: Mercury, Lead, Chromium, Cadmium, and Arsenic," Frontiers in Pharmacology, vol. 12, Apr. 2021, Art. no. 643972.
R. Hamada and M. Osame, "Minamata Disease and Other Mercury Syndromes," in Toxicology of Metals, Boca Raton, FL, USA: CRC Press, 1996, pp. 337–351.
M. V. Storey, B. van der Gaag, and B. P. Burns, "Advances in on-line drinking water quality monitoring and early warning systems," Water Research, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 741–747, Jan. 2011.
M. M. Ali, D. Hossain, A. Al-Imran, M. S. Khan, M. Begum, and M. H. Osman, "Environmental pollution with heavy metals: A public health concern," in Heavy Metals: Their Environmental Impacts and Mitigation, London, UK: IntechOpen, 2021, pp. 1–20.
P. K. Rai, S. S. Lee, M. Zhang, Y. F. Tsang, and K.-H. Kim, "Heavy metals in food crops: Health risks, fate, mechanisms, and management," Environment International, vol. 125, pp. 365–385, Apr. 2019.
B. O. Anyanwu, A. N. Ezejiofor, Z. N. Igweze, and O. E. Orisakwe, "Heavy Metal Mixture Exposure and Effects in Developing Nations: An Update," Toxics, vol. 6, no. 4, Dec. 2018, Art. no. 65.
R. O. Strobl and P. D. Robillard, "Network design for water quality monitoring of surface freshwaters: A review," Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 87, no. 4, pp. 639–648, Jun. 2008.
S. Longo et al., "Monitoring and diagnosis of energy consumption in wastewater treatment plants. A state of the art and proposals for improvement," Applied Energy, vol. 179, pp. 1251–1268, Oct. 2016.
C. J. Vorosmarty et al., "Ecosystem-based water security and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)," Ecohydrology & Hydrobiology, vol. 18, no. 4, pp. 317–333, Dec. 2018.
J. Alcamo, "Water quality and its interlinkages with the Sustainable Development Goals," Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, vol. 36, pp. 126–140, Feb. 2019.
B. Sundaram et al., "Groundwater Sampling and Analysis – A Field Guide," Geoscience Australia, Symonston, Australia, Technical Report 2009/27, 2009.
H. M. Nazif, "Groundwater Quality Analysis by Integrating Water Quality Index, GIS Techniques and Supervised Machine Learning: A Case Study in Duhok Province, Iraq," Passer Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, vol. 6, no. Special Issue, pp. 28–40, Jan. 2024.
Guidelines for drinking-water quality. World Health Organization, 2004.
A. N. Laghari, Z. A. Siyal, D. K. Bangwar, M. A. Soomro, G. D. Walasai, and F. A. Shaikh, "Groundwater Quality Analysis for Human Consumption: A Case Study of Sukkur City, Pakistan," Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 2616–2620, Feb. 2018.
M. G. Uddin, S. Nash, A. Rahman, and A. I. Olbert, "A comprehensive method for improvement of water quality index (WQI) models for coastal water quality assessment," Water Research, vol. 219, Jul. 2022, Art. no. 118532.
M. Jalali, "Chemical characteristics of groundwater in parts of mountainous region, Alvand, Hamadan, Iran," Environmental Geology, vol. 51, no. 3, pp. 433–446, Nov. 2006.
M. A. Keerio, N. Bhatti, S. R. Samo, A. Saand, and A. A. Bhuriro, "Ground Water Quality Assessment of Daur Taluka, Shaheed Benazir Abad," Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 2785–2789, Apr. 2018.
M. B. Alaya, S. Saidi, T. Zemni, and F. Zargouni, "Suitability assessment of deep groundwater for drinking and irrigation use in the Djeffara aquifers (Northern Gabes, south-eastern Tunisia)," Environmental Earth Sciences, vol. 71, no. 8, pp. 3387–3421, Apr. 2014.
R. A. Fallahzadeh, M. T. Ghaneian, M. Miri, and M. M. Dashti, "Spatial analysis and health risk assessment of heavy metals concentration in drinking water resources," Environmental Science and Pollution Research, vol. 24, no. 32, pp. 24790–24802, Nov. 2017.
M. T. Hayat, M. Nauman, N. Nazir, S. Ali, and N. Bangash, "Environmental Hazards of Cadmium: Past, Present, and Future," in Cadmium Toxicity and Tolerance in Plants, M. Hasanuzzaman, M. N. V. Prasad, and M. Fujita, Eds. Cambridge, MA, USA: Academic Press, 2019, pp. 163–183.
Downloads
How to Cite
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Rangeen Shihab Mohammed, Hindreen Mohammed Nazif, Idrees Majeed Kareem, Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after its publication in ETASR with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.