Contamination profile of DDT and HCH in surface sediments and their spatial distribution from North-East India
Introduction
Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), known for their environmental issues and global concerns are one of the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) which are ubiquitous in the environmental matrixes. There has been broad concern for OCPs due to their high persistence, toxicity, bioaccumulation and pose great threat to the ecosystems and human health (Laws, 2000, Chau, 2005, Guzzella et al., 2005). Although application of these chemicals has been banned or restricted in many countries especially the developed ones, some developing countries including India are still using these compounds due to their low cost and versatility in action in agriculture, industry and public health (Waliszewski et al., 2001, Bouwman et al., 2006, Darko et al., 2008, Ennaceur et al., 2008, Abhilash and Singh, 2009, Sun et al., 2010).
The input pathways of OCPs into the aquatic environments include runoff from non-point sources, discharge of industrial wastewater, wet or dry deposition, direct dumping of wastes into rivers and some other means (Iwata et al., 1993; Yang et al., 2005). Consequently, OCPs residues might ultimately reach to the people through consumption of contaminated drinking water, fishes and agriculture food (Zhou et al., 2006). OCPs have an affinity for particulate matter and one of their main sinks is supposed to be aquatic i.e. river and marine sediments. Thus levels and distribution of OCPs can indicate the contamination status of aquatic resources (1, Zhang et al., 2003, Zhang et al., 2004).
The determination of organochlorine residues in fishes, sediment and water may give indication of the extent of aquatic contamination and accumulation pattern of these compounds in the tropical environment that will facilitate to understand the behavior and fate of the persistent chemicals (Kannan et al., 1995, Kannan et al., 2005, Darko et al., 2008). Although sediments do not contribute a direct measure of the degree of aquatic pollution, they offer an irreplaceable support in reconstructing the historical inputs of OCPs based on profile description of contamination in core samples (Hendy and Peake, 1996).
All over the world, approximately three million people get poisoned and about 200,000 die each year from pesticide poisoning and a majority of those belong to the developing nations (FAO/WHO, 2000, Sarkar et al., 2008a). The figures may be even greater due to under reporting or lack of authentic and reliable data. Residual OCPs are considered as endocrine disrupters and carcinogens (Charlier and Plomteux, 2002, Brody and Rudel, 2003). Accumulation of OCPs in human body may increase risk of various types of human cancer including breast, lung, cervix, prostate, and some other health effects such as endometriosis, hypospadias and cryptorchidias (Hosie et al., 2000, Ahmed et al., 2002). Also, associations have been reported about the effects of OCPs exposure on human growth (Longnecker et al., 2001, Gladen et al., 2003, Nagayama et al., 2007, Alvarez-Pedrerol et al., 2008; Schell et al., 2008), mental and psychomotor development (BBC, 2006, Ribas-Fitó et al., 2006, Torres-Sánchez et al., 2007, Sagiv et al., 2008).
The distribution of contaminants in sediments depends largely on the physico-chemical properties of ecosystem, partition coefficients of individual contaminants, the organic contents and microflora activities (Glynn et al., 1995). With low water solubilities and high hydrophobicities, OCPs are readily sorbed onto suspended particulate matter and subsequently deposited into river and marine sediments (Yang et al., 2005). Sediments, one of the important repositories of OCPs, can re-suspend and release bound-OCPs from particles in to water under favorable conditions, which result in second contamination of water (Chau, 2005) and may pose the problem of chronic toxicity to animals and humans via air, water and foods intake (Tan et al., 2009, Kuranchie-Mensah et al., 2012).
Although reports on OCPs in sediments from Vellar Estuary, Eastern Coast, Shahjahanpur, Arabian Sea, South India, Keoladeo National Park Lake, North-eastern Coast, Sunderban wetland (Ramesh et al., 1991, Sarkar, 1994, Sarkar et al., 2008b, Dua et al., 1996, Sarkar et al., 1997, Senthilkumar et al., 2001, Kathpal et al., 2004, Guzzella et al., 2005) in India, Ghana, Vietnam, China, Korea and Taiwan (Lee et al., 2001, Doong et al., 2002b, Darko et al., 2008, Hoai et al., 2010, Sun et al., 2010) are available, data is lacking on sediment contamination profile from Assam. This region, characterized by high rainfall and intensive agriculture (including paddy and cash crop), is prone to vector-borne diseases and endemic for malaria, a serious health problem. The emphasis and application of DDT (for more than last 20 years) (Dev et al., 2001) and HCH in this area is primarily for malaria eradication and pest control in agriculture, without having any consideration about its adverse effects on environment and human health. The present investigation was aimed at quantitative evaluation and spatial distribution of HCHs and DDTs in surface sediments of River Brahmaputra, major tributaries, ponds/wetlands (water from which being used for different purposes) from district Nagaon and Dibrugarh, Assam to identify the possible sources and pathways of pollution and factors affecting contamination to prevent further deterioration of environment.
Section snippets
Study area
The investigation area was located in districts Nagaon and Dibrugarh of Assam, North-East India (Fig. 1). The State is strategically placed, bounded by the six hill states, and shares an international border with Bhutan on the north and Bangladesh on the south. It is the most populous (31.17 million in year 2011) and second largest state (78,523 km2) in NE India.
Assam alone, with only 2.6% of the country's population, contributes more than 5% of the total malaria cases in the country (Prasad,
Status of DDTs and HCHs contamination in sediments
The levels of OCPs, DDTs and HCHs in sediments from Nagaon and Dibrugarh shows a range of fluctuations and are summarized in Table 2 along with standard deviation, median, minimum and maximum values.
In surface sediment samples collected from rivers and streams, the ∑HCH content ranged between 71.2–655 ng/g and 39.2–728 ng/g with a mean value of 255 ng/g and 279 ng/g while from ponds/wetlands, the contents were in the range of 72.0–834 ng/g and 142–743 ng/g with a mean value of 335 ng/g and 422 ng/g for
Conclusion
The present study allowed probably the first systematic and comprehensive evaluation of occurrence, distribution and possible sources of DDTs and HCHs in surface sediments from district Dibrugarh and Nagaon, Assam, NE India. The DDTs and HCHs levels observed were of concern in relevance with the global pattern. Sediments from both the districts were mainly dominated with p,p′-DDT and β-HCH. Presence of elevated DDTs and HCHs levels in sediments can be attributed to the use of these pesticides
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