Hydrogeochemical modeling evaluating carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic health risk of potentially toxic elements, integrating groundwater pollution indexing: Insights of GIS-based and geostatistical approaches

Abstract Globally, potentially toxic elements (PTEs), and bacterial contamination in the groundwater gain much attention due to health hazards, persistency, and genotoxicity. The health hazard posed due to PTEs via groundwater contamination is a major public health concern. We aim to evaluate PTEs concentration, carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic health hazard, groundwater quality indexing (GWQI), along with source provenance, fate distribution, and transport. Using new estimates from drinking water standards and health advisories (DWSHA) of water USEPA to calculate carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic health risk. The GWQI-model, principal component analysis (PCA), mineral phases via PHREEQC, spatial distribution by ArcGIS to determine the impacts of groundwater contamination via uniform increase in the concentrations of PTEs using world health organization (WHO) guidelines. PTEs viz. Cd, Cu, Co, Fe, Pb, and Zn were 0.06, 0.27, 0.07, 0.55, 0.05, and 0.19 mg/L and E. coli, F. coli, and P. coli were 27.5, 24, 19 CFU/100 ml. Moreover, anhydrite, aragonite, calcite, dolomite, gypsum, halite, hydroxyl-apatite, and minerals of PTEs viz. monteponite, tenorite, cuprite, cuprous ferrite, cupric ferrite, ferrihydrite, goethite, hematite, lepidocrocite, maghemite, magnetite, massicot, minium, litharge, plattnerite, and zincite were 0.4, 2.4, 2.6, 5.1, 0.6, -4.0, and 11.2, and were -5.5, 2.23, 4.65, 18.56, 20.0, 4.84, 7.54, 17.46, 6.66, 9.67, 22.72, -3.36, 22.9, 3.16, -18.0, and 1.46. The groundwater showed carcinogenic, and non-carcinogenic health hazards for children, and adults. The GWQI showed that 58.3% samples revealed worse water quality. PCA determines the percentage contribution of pollution sources and reveals weathering, minerals dissolution, water-rock interaction, and industrial effluents. The silicate, and carbonate weathering, and ion exchange mechanism altering CaHCO3 type water to NaHCO3 type. However, E. Coli, EC, Turbidity, TSS, PO43─, Na+, Mg+2, Ca+2, Cd, Co, and Pb had exceeded the WHO permissible limit suggested that the groundwater is unfit for household domestic purposes.