Heavy metal toxicity and its human health assessment: A preliminary study from the Perumal Lake sediments, Tamil Nadu, India

The current investigation manifests the heavy metal toxicity and its human health assessment to appraise the environmental deterioration of the sediments within the Perumal Lake, Tamil Nadu, India. Five surface samples were collected from the Perumal Lake in 2023, which undergoes the selective perception of the granulometric analysis, implying supremacy of the clay content and limited sand and silt contents. The organic matter indicates the higher input of waste disposal, and the CaCO3 illustrates the existence of shell fragments in the lake environments. Noteworthy results of the heavy metal concentration as arranged in the devaluation order as Zn > Cu > Fe > Cr > Ni > Mn > Pb > Co > Cd. Followed by the heavy metal concentration, the environmental contamination indices such as Igeo denote that except for Cd metal, other heavy metals indicate moderate to extreme pollution status. The Enrichment Factor (Ef) illustrates Fe, Co, Cd, Zn, Cu, Ni, and Pb, highlighting no metal enrichment. In contrast, Mn and Cr reveal low metal enrichments, and the Cf reveals all the heavy metals, which argues for low to high contamination ranges. The Cd and the mCd are categorized as very high, and PERI underscores the low-risk category. The Hazard Index (HI) of the non-carcinogenic category and carcinogenic demonstrates that children and adults are primarily at risk of ingestion. At the same time, the dermal pathway indicates low jeopardy to children and adults and no risk to humans. The Heavy Metal Toxicity Load (HMTL) poses the sample location three registers a significant accumulation of toxic contagion proposed to remove from the sediments. Realm of heavy metal toxicity and its human health assessment underscores for researchers in environmental quality determination, and the strategies discussed such as phytoremediation, in-situ capping, and biotechnological techniques, may be helpful in evaluation and implement remediation methods of pollution in aquatic environments.