Assessment of Ecological and Potential Health Risk Caused by Nitrate Pollution of the Berdan and Göksu River Basins, Turkey

Abstract

To determine ecological and health risk assessment of the Berdan and Göksu river waters, principal physical and biochemical variables were measured monthly between September 2021 and August 2022 in the Berdan and Göksu river basins. Ecological risk assessment of the studied river basins indicated that both the Berdan and Göksu river waters were contaminated by phosphorus. Potential health risk assessment of the Berdan and Göksu river basins showed that the calculated Health Quotient values in the two visited stations in the Berdan river exceeded 0.1 indicating low cancer risk for both adults and children whilst one visited station in the Göksu River basin showed low cancer risk for children. The health risk assessment also indicated that the Health Quotient values calculated for children were consistently higher than those calculated for adults, showing that children were potentially at higher risk for health hazards from nitrate.