Groundwater pollution by trace metals and human health risk assessment in central west part of Bangladesh

To evaluate the trace element contamination level and human health risk in study area, a total of twenty groundwater samples were collected and analyzed for pH, EC, Cu, Cd, Fe, Mn, Ni, and Zn. The results revealed that, groundwater is slightly acidic in nature with the mean conductance of 686.10 μs/cm. Heavy metal evaluation index (HEI), the degree of contamination (Cd) and nemerow pollution index (NI) were employed to estimate the pollution load, and it was found 5%, 95%, and 75% of samples exhibits the high degree of pollution respectively. According to the spatial analysis it was found that, south-central part of the study area is highly contaminated with trace elements. Moreover, Pearson correlation, principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster…