Anthropogenic Effects of Coal Mining on Water Resources in Parts of Northern Anambra Basin, North–central, Nigeria

Abstract

The coal mining activities within the study area have produced high concentrations of potentially toxic elements with acidity in the water resources leading to pollution and environmental degradation. This paper considers evaluating the level of contamination of most of these potential toxic elements through the determination of physical parameters, and chemical and heavy metal concentrations in water using standard fields and laboratory methods such as an auto meter from Hanna Instruments, the Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS), and the Hach DR/2010 spectrophotometer. The results show the mean concentration values of 0.0225 mg/l, 0.048 mg/l, 0.6346 mg/l, 0.0359 mg/l, 0.2506 mg/l, 0.0476 mg/l, 0.00125 mg/l, and 0.7295 mg/l for Al, Cd, Cr, As, Fe, Pb, Hg, and Zn, respectively. The mean concentrations of heavy metals in the water samples occur in decreasing order as, Zn > Cr > Fe > Cd > Pb > As > Al > Hg. The results also reveal the presence of high anthropogenic concentrations of potentially toxic elements such as Zinc (Zn), Chromium (Cr), Iron (Fe), Lead (Pb), Sulfate (SO4), and total dissolved solids while, low pH (acidic) values suggests that the water is acidic and of high health risk to humans.