Health risk evaluation of uranium in groundwater of Bemetara district of Chhattisgarh state, India

This study has been carried out to determine the uranium concentration associated with physicochemical parameters and water quality index during pre-monsoon and post-monsoon of Bemetara district to correlate the quality of water for public health. The correlation matrix has been applied for the determination of the correlation value to find out the relationship of uranium with water quality parameters. The uranium levels in water samples range from 1.15 to 83.5 mu g/L and 0.68 to 96.08 mu g/L during pre-monsoon and post-monsoon, respectively. The uranium concentration of few samples exceeds the safe limit of 30 mu g/L prescribed by World Health Organization 2011. A positive correlation of uranium concentration with total hardness and total dissolved solids during both monsoons has been observed. The lifetime cancer risk varied from 0.07 x 10(-6) to 5.06 x 10(-6) and 0.04 x 10(-6) to 5.82 x 10(-6) in pre-monsoon and post-monsoon period, respectively, which is lower than the maximum permissible limit (< 10(-3)). The corresponding values of hazard quotient of 21 samples in pre-monsoon and 16 samples in post-monsoon were found to be greater than unity, which indicates a significant risk due to chemical toxicity. The observed results clearly showed that there is no harmful effect by radiological risk, but chemical risk can affect human health.