Trace metal residues in a tropical Watercourse sediment in Nigeria: Health risk implications

Abstract

This study aims to ascertain the possible health risks on humans to trace metals in Ossiomo River sediment via different exposure pathways. The pollution of river sediments by trace metals has raised countless concern for their potential biological noxiousness, environmental durability, and biological accumulation to humans along the food chain. Selected trace metals were analyzed based on required analytic approaches. Standard statistical tools were used to evaluate the records collected from the field. The outcomes from the field showed that the amount of the trace metals in the sediment were significantly higher in most samples and above set standard limits. The results of the hazard quotient (HQ) of the ingestion and dermal exposure were sourced from only Cd; 78.03, 6.93 and 7.47 for the ingestion pathway and 2840.20, 1445.46 and 1556.65 for the dermal pathway respectively. The hazard index (HI) obtained for Cd were ingestion (78.26, 6.96 and 7.49) and dermal (2841.87, 1446.31 and 1557.56) respectively. With more cumulative interactive effects in the children. The Cancer Risk gotten in this study was far greater in the children [Pb (0.644), Cr (3.35E+01) and Cd (4.76E+02)] than in the male [Pb (1.19E-01), Cr (6.20E+00) and Cd (8.82E+01)] and the female [Pb (0.128), Cr (6.67E+00) and Cd (9.50E+01)]. The TCR (Total Cancer Risk) values obtained were far beyond the set standards with Cd and Cr values of 659.09 and 46.32 respectively. We recommend further studies in this ecosystem in order to monitor the persistent anthropogenic impact and to anticipate any possible ecological risk that may propel human health risk impact.