Integrated Geochemical Analysis of Groundwater Quality and Human Health Risks by Using Multivariate Statistical Methods: A Case Study of Mayurbhanj District, Odisha, India

Abstract

Abstract Mayurbhanj district is predominantly inhabited by tribal communities. Among the various tribal groups in Odisha, Mayurbhanj alone accommodates 45 distinct categories. These tribal communities primarily rely on natural water sources such as rivers, streams, and tube wells for drinking purposes without undergoing additional purification processes. Hence, investigating the factors affecting groundwater quality is essential to ensure its safety for drinking purposes and mitigate the health risks associated with the consumption of contaminated water. In the present study, groundwater quality of 145 water samples from different sources of Mayurbhanj district was analysed. The geographical coordinates of sample locations and measurements of groundwater quality parameters were used in Geographic Information System software, ArcGIS pro, to construct the spatial distribution and spatial variation maps. Five significant principal components having eigen value greater than 1 with total variance of 73.43. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) test was above 0.5 which shows that data collected from the study area are accurate for analysis. Electrical conductivity, F−, pH and NO3− varies in the range of 42 to 1754 µS/cm, 0.01 to 1.97 mg/l, 5.5 to 7.9 and 0.1 to 21.2 mg/l respectively. The non-carcinogenic health risk assessment indicates that the hazard quotient (HQ) values attributed to fluoride ion and nitrate ion exposure range from 0.43 to 0.46 for children and 0.23 to 0.26 for adults, and from 0.002 to 0.6 for children and 0.001 to 0.3 for adults, respectively. The children are comparatively at slightly more prone to health risk in comparison to adults. Gibbs diagram shows that most of the water samples comes in the region of rock-water interaction dominance in Gibbs plot of TDS vs chloride ion concentration. In the loading biplot for the study area, the first principal component in the horizontal axes has positive coefficients for carbonate, chloride, bicarbonate, total alkalinity, calcium hardness, magnesium hardness, total dissolved solids, electrical conductivity, fluoride. TDS has positive correlation with EC (0.98), chloride (0.525), nitrate (0.445), sulphate (0.445), total hardness (0.438), total alkalinity (0.524), carbonate (0.528) and bicarbonate (0.535). The software used for statistical study are, Minitab, Origin and SPSS. The results of this study would be useful for the Government and policy makers to provide safe and quality drinking water to the tribal community.