Heavy Metals Contamination Assessment of Water and Soils in and Around Barapukuria Coal Mine Area, Bangladesh

Abstract

Abstract:In order to evaluate the heavy metals contamination of groundwater in Barapukuria Coal Mine (BCM) area and its vicinity, nine groundwater samples from different location, two waste water either treated and/or untreated that were used to irrigate in and around the coal mine areas, three surficial soil samples (~20cm depth) and a coal dust sample were collected during March, 2015. The samples were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Each sample was analyzed for As, Mn, Fe total , Cu, Pb, Zn, Mo, Ni, Co, Cr, Cd and Hg. It was found that As, Cu, Pb, Zn, Mo, Co, Cr, Cd and Hg did not exhibit significant elevated levels, but concentration of Mn, Fe total and Ni ranging from 0.15 to 3.85mg/L, 0 to 1.88mg/L and 0.01 to 0.09mg/L respectively both in groundwater and mine waste water samples exceeded the World Health Organization (WHO, 2004) drinking water guideline values of 0.4mg/L of Mn, 0.3 mg/L of Fe and of 0.02mg/L of Ni. Similarly the mean heavy metal concentrations in soils were below the Bangladesh standards for all heavy metals but the maximum values of Co (137.25 to 245.24mg/kg), Cr (139.02 to 243.38mg/kg) and Hg (0 to 24.28mg/kg) also exceeded the maximum acceptable limit of Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO, 1992) (Co of 50mg/kg, Cr of 100mg/kg) and Environment Agency (EA, 2009) (Hg of 1mg/kg) guideline standard. However, the coal dust was not above the guideline recommended limit for any elements. Therefore, this study reveals that the use of treated and/or untreated coal mine waste water for irrigation has increased the risk of heavy metals contamination in groundwater and causing potential health hazards in the long time term.

Assessing the groundwater quality and health risk: A case study on Setabganj sugar mills limited, Dinajpur, Bangladesh

“…The standard deviation shows very less fluctuation indicating small variations in the parameters among the samples. Literatures found substantial heavy metal concentration in the groundwater of industrial zone (Rahman et al, 2012), mining field Khan et al, 2017), and agricultural field (Brevik & Burgess, 2012) in Bangladesh that support the findings of our study.…”

“…Heavy metals intrusion in groundwater is a critical environmental problem all around the world, now a days (Kumar, Delson, & Babu, 2012). Literature suggests the release of numerous heavy metals in the atmosphere and water bodies from different industrial activities in Bangladesh (Rahman et al, 2012;Khan, Seddique, Rahman, & Shimizu, 2017;Haque, Reza, & Ahmed, 2018). The arsenic contamination (BBS, 2009) and salinity intrusion (Rahman, Majumder, Rahman, & Halim, 2011) in the groundwater of Bangladesh has exacerbated the dilemma of safe drinking water throughout the country as 97% of the total population depends on groundwater for their drinking water sources (Flanagan, Johnston, & Zheng, 2012).…”

Impacts of long-term irrigation with coalmine effluent contaminated water on trace metal contamination of topsoil and potato tubers in Dinajpur area, Bangladesh

“…In the present study, three possible crop irrigation water sources, namely groundwater (site-I), surface water (site-II) and coalmine wastewater (site-III) were tested for nine trace metal status (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn) both in irrigation water, cultivation soil, and potato tubers grown in the soil over three consecutive years compared with their respective maximum permissible limits. Coal is a highly valuable natural resource and coal mines are a very important as they help in industrial energy supply [ 82 , 83 ]. The target location of the study is one of the biggest coal mining sites located at the heart of a vast cropping lands of northern Bangladesh.…”

“…Adjacent to the mining factory, there exists three big surface water reservoirs (a canal and two lakes) which supply a substantial amount of water for irrigation activity of the area. The mine yields about 0.6 million tonnes of coal annually [ 84 ] and during its operation effluents can easily find their way to contaminate these surface water resources both directly and indirectly [ 83 , 85 ]. Studies have been conducted in the past in the same target location that reported alarming accumulation of trace metals particularly Ba, Cr, Ni, Cu, Ti, Mn, Zn, Pb, As, Fe, Rb, Sr, Nb and Zr in the soil of the mine drainage lines; as well as toxic levels of Mn, Fe and Ni in the mine discharged wastewater [ 82 , 83 , [85] , [86] , [87] ].…”

Physicochemical Characterization of Water of the Plateau of Mbe in Pool-North in Republic of Congo Brazzaville

“…Water requirements of the world population are more and more growing and the resources increasingly rare. The access generalized to drinking water, the irrigation, the urban development, industrial development and tourism are as many factors which make increase these pressures [1][2][3][4][5][6].…”