Pollution characteristics and risk assessment of potentially toxic elements of fine street dust during COVID-19 lockdown in Bangladesh

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangladesh government took the measure like partial lockdown (PL) and complete lockdown (CL) to curb the spread. These measures gave a chance for environmental restoration. In this study, street dust samples were collected during PL and CL from four main urban land use categories in Dhaka city, such as industrial area (IA), commercial area (CA), public facilities area (PFA), and residential area (RA). Ten potentially toxic elements (Cr, Mn, Zn, Fe, Pb, Cu, Co, Ni, As, and Cd) in fine street dust particles (diameter < 20 μm) were determined following aqua-regia digestion and measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) to evaluate distribution, pollution sources, and potential risks to ecological systems and human health. Results showed that during PL, the concentrations of toxic elements in the dust were higher than that of CL. Cd and Fe were lowest and highest in concentration with 1.56 to 41,970 µg/g and 0.82 to 39,330 µg/g in partial and complete lockdown period respectively. All toxic elements were detected at high levels above background values where Fe with the highest and Cd with lowest concentrations, respectively. By land use, the levels of toxic elements pollution followed IA > PFA > RA > CA. Correlation analysis (CA), principal component analysis (PCA), and hierarchal cluster analysis (HCA) revealed that the sources of these analyzed toxic elements were mainly from anthropogenic which are related to industrial and vehicular or traffic emissions. Enrichment factor (EF), geoaccumulation index ( I geo ), contamination factor (CF), and pollution load index (PLI) also suggested that the dust was more polluted during PL. Exposure of toxic elements to human was mainly via skin contact followed by ingestion and inhalation. Hazard quotient (HQ) values were < 1 except for Mn through dermal contact at all sites during partial and complete lockdown, similar to hazard index (HI), while Cr further showed high non-carcinogenic risks to children. Generally, children HI values were about 5–6 times higher than those of adults, suggesting a greater vulnerability of children to the health concerns caused by toxic elements in street dust. Carcinogenic risk (CR) values via ingestion pathway indicated all elements (except Pb) had significant health effect, while CR value by inhalation results showed no significant health effect. Cumulative carcinogenic risk (CCR) value had significant health effect except Pb in all land use categories. CCR values decreased during CL and reached at acceptable limit for most of the cases. This research provides a message to the local governments and environmental authorities to have a complete assessment of toxic elements in the street dust of Dhaka megacity in order to assuring public health safety and ecological sustainability. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11356-022-22541-8.

Pollution Characteristics, Source Apportionment, and Health Risk of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) of Fine Street Dust during and after COVID-19 Lockdown in Bangladesh

“…The results indicated that the lockdown situation impacted the distribution of PAHs in Dhaka city. In addition, higher concentrations for WL and PL are attributed to a lower restriction of vehicle usage and anthropogenic activities compared to the complete lockdown [44]. It has been demonstrated in previous studies that anthropogenic activities influence the distribution of PAHs in street dusts [52,55].…”

“…The highest result of 53% of the ∑16 PAH concentration decreased from the situation without lockdown to the complete lockdown in the commercial area. This may be due to the restriction of anthropogenic activities [44]. The distribution of total PAH showed significant differences during the different lockdown scenarios (p < 0.05).…”

“…The locations, which included industrial areas (IA), commercial areas (CA), public facilities areas (PFA), and residential areas (RA), were chosen based on the land use. Each test location's 1 m 2 impermeable area, which included the street, pavement, and gutter, was randomly swept to collect around 500 g of street dust [44,46]. A composite representative sample was created by thoroughly combining four sub-dust samples [47].…”

Lead, Cadmium and other metals in Residential Paint Chips from Indoor wall surfaces

“…Inhalation, ingestion and dermal are major routes through which people are exposed to pollutants in the environment. In describing these three routes, an estimated health risk assessment model by the US Environmental Protection Agency can be used for its calculation (USEPA, 2001; Bamidele et al, 2020;Rabin et al, 2023). The calculated health risk assessment model not only describes these routes but also has values, which can be used to interpret data for children and adults.…”

Geochemistry of Potentially Toxic Elements in Soil and Sediments of a Tanzanian Small-Scale Gold Mining Area

“…The geochemical background values used in the present study are the Upper Continental Crust (UCC) averages proposed by Wedepohl (1995) which are 2, 35, 0.102, 17, and 0.056 for As, Cr, Cd, Pb, and Hg respectively. I geo is classified as I geo < 0 unpoluted; 0 ≤ I geo < 1 unpolluted to moderately polluted; 1 ≤ I geo < 2 moderately polluted; 2 ≤ I geo < 3 moderately to strongly polluted; 3 ≤ I geo < 4 strongly polluted; 4 ≤ I geo < 5 strongly to extremely polluted; and I geo ≥ 5 extremely polluted (Rabin et al, 2023).…”