Health risk assessment due to fluoride contamination in groundwater of Bichpuri, Agra, India: a case study

The present study deals with the assessment of health risks due to fluoride contamination in Bichpuri block of Agra, India. Sampling was carried out from 60 different spatially distributed well locations. Assessment of human health risk was carried out using computations based on chronic daily intake (CDI) and hazard quotient (HQ) in all three categories, i.e., infants, children, and adults. Fluoride ingested by adults, as estimated in terms of CDI was found 1.5 times greater than infants and 1.25 times than children, correspondingly indicating severity of health issue. Moreover, values of HQ were found greater than 1 in the entire target group having infants, children, and adults with the exception only in Bichpuri village of the block. More than 92% of the samples showed risk values exceeding the safe level of 1, indicating vulnerable quality of water due to fluoride. Piper and Schoeller diagram were also plotted to explore presence of other important ions present in the groundwater of studied area.