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Assessment of some potentially harmful elements and their associated health risk in stream sediments of rural gold-mining communities in Southwestern Nigeria

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Abstract

The impact of potentially harmful elements in stream sediments around active and abandoned artisanal gold-mining communities in Nigeria was assessed in this study in order to determine their level of contamination and evaluate the associated health risk. Thirty-five (35) stream sediment samples were collected within an active mine (ACM-19 samples), abandoned mine (ABM-9 samples), and outside the mining zone (OTM-7 samples). The samples collected were analyzed for their potentially harmful element (PHE) with inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). The Contamination indices characterised the sediment of active mine (ACM) as being severely contaminated by Cu, Pb, and Zn and moderately contaminated by Ba, Cr, and V. Sediments of the abandoned mine (ABM) were moderately contaminated by Cu, Pb, Zn, Ba, Cr, and V. Outside the mining zone (OTM), sediment was uncontaminated with all the elements. The health quotient (HQ) for dermal contact ranged from 3.45 × 10 − 8 to 8.52 × 10 − 4 for children and 1.85 × 10 − 4 to 5.52 × 10 − 2 for adults. The health indexes (HI) performed on the data of this study for both children and adults was 0.77 and 0.17, respectively. Therefore, both HQ and HI were less than 1 and consequently fell within the maximum permissible limit. However, the HI of 0.77 for children, which is close to 1, could be worrisome, and continuous and unregulated mining activities in the area may pose a health risks to the children in the neighborhood in the nearest future.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geological Sciences, Osun State University, Osun State, Osogbo, Nigeria

    Tesleem O. Kolawole

  2. Department of Epidemiology, Medical Statistics and Environmental Health, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

    Temitope A. Laniyan

  3. Department of Earth Sciences, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria

    Esther O. Bello

  4. Department of Earth Sciences, Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, Oyo State, Nigeria

    Roland A. Isibor

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  1. Tesleem O. Kolawole
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  2. Temitope A. Laniyan
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  3. Esther O. Bello
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  4. Roland A. Isibor
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Correspondence to Tesleem O. Kolawole.

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Kolawole, T.O., Laniyan, T.A., Bello, E.O. et al. Assessment of some potentially harmful elements and their associated health risk in stream sediments of rural gold-mining communities in Southwestern Nigeria. Arab J Geosci 15, 941 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-022-10164-9

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