Potentially Toxic Elemental Contamination in Wainivesi River, Fiji Impacted by Gold-mining Activities using Chemometric Tools and SOM Analysis

Abstract

Potentially toxic elements (PTEs) contamination in Wainivesi River, Fiji triggered by gold-mining activities is a major public health concern deserving attention. However, chemometric approaches and pattern recognition of PTEs in surface water and sediment are yet hardly studied in Pacific Island countries like Fijin urban River. In our study, twenty-four sediment and eight water sampling sites from the Wainivesi River, Fiji were explored to evaluate the spatial pattern, eco-environmental pollution, and source apportionment of PTEs. This analysis was done using an integrated approach of self-organizing map (SOM), principle component analysis (PCA), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), and indexical approaches. The PTEs average concentration is decreasing order of Fe > Pb > Zn > Ni > Cr > Cu > Mn > Co > Cd for water and Fe > Zn > Pb > Mn > Cr > Ni > Cu > Co > Cd for sediment, respectively. Outcomes of eco-environmental indices including contamination and enrichment factors, and geo-accumulation index differed spatially indicated that majority of the sediment sites were highly polluted by Zn, Cd, and Ni. Cd and Ni contents can cause both ecological and human health risks. According to PCA, two sources such as point and geogenic sources for sediment and also two sources including weathering of rock-water and anthropogenic sources of PTEs for water were identified in the study area. The SOM analysis identified three spatial patterns e.g., Cr-Co-Zn-Mn, Fe-Cd and Ni-Pb-Cu in water and Zn-Cd-Cu-Mn, Cr-Ni and Fe, Co-Pb in sediment. Spatial distribution of entropy water quality index values depicted that northern and northwestern areas possess ‘poor’ to ‘extremely-poor’ quality water. The entropy weights indicated Zn, Cd and Cu as the major pollutants in deteriorating the water quality. Our finding provides a baseline database with eco-environmental and health risk measures for the Wainivesi river contamination.

Heavy Metals and Metalloid Effects on Cytogenetics in Frogs (Sylvirana nigrovittata) around the Sepon Gold-Copper Mine, Lao PDR

“…The appearance of 10 elements in sediment samples was similar to previous studies that reported that Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb, As, Hg and Pb around gold mine areas in the Republic of Fiji, China and Papua New Guinea were discovered in high concentrations (Kumar et al, 2022;Tang et al, 2021;Kapia et al, 2016). In particular, the concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Zn and As were 0.33-30, 58-281, 28-100, 118-1013 and 9 mg/kg, respectively.…”

“…The study of heavy metal contamination in water around a gold mine area in Oman was found to be similar to this study in that Zn, Fe, Ni and Mn were higher than the standard (Abdul-Wahab and Marikar, 2012), and Kumar et al (2022) reported that these four elements in the Republic of Fiji (Wainivesi gold mine) were relatively high when compared to the same standard. A study in Thailand (Wang Saphung gold mine) revealed that only Fe and Mn were higher than the standard (Intamat et al, 2016a).…”

Distribution, sources, and pollution levels of toxic metal(loid)s in an urban river (Ichamati), Bangladesh using SOM and PMF modeling with GIS tool

“…Recent studies on freshwaters and river basins worldwide have reported that polluted river water by toxic contaminants has worsened over the decades (Islam et al 2015;Siddiqui and Pandey 2019;Kumar et al 2022;Siddique et al 2022). Many studies have revealed that anthropic inputs, including the unplanned urbanization of cities and the development of industries and factories, have increased river water pollution, which degrades surface water quality (Proshad et al 2022;Namngam et al 2021).…”

Primordial radionuclides in the dust samples from the educational institutions of central Bangladesh: radiological risk assessment

“…Bulk chemical compositions of indoor-dusts can also be correlated to the room’s air-quality ( Praveena et al., 2015 ; Soltani et al., 2015 ) that may also cause health risks. Furthermore, children & juveniles are relatively more vulnerable to environmental heavy metal(oid)s ( Habib et al., 2020 ; Jannat et al., 2022 ; Mohtaderi et al., 2019 ; Islam et al., 2020a , 2020b ; Medunic et al., 2016 ; Kumar et al., 2022 , 2021a , 2021b ; Ahmed et al., 2021 ; Hossain et al., 2022a , 2022b ; Rahman et al., 2022 ; Anik et al., 2022 ). Thus, studies on NORM’s occurrence in the dust of classrooms are of utter importance.…”