Environmental pollution loads on surface water chemistry and potentially ecological risks of inland aquatic ecosystem in South-Eastern State, Nigeria

Environmental Systems Research

Table 10 Risk assesment of heavy metals in Nworie inland aquatic ecosystem

Stations	Contamination factor (C_f),									C_d	PL1
Stations	Cd²⁺	Cr²⁺	Cu²⁺	Fe²⁺	Ni²⁺	Pb²⁺	Zn²⁺	Mn²⁺	Hg²⁺	C_d	PL1
UR	0.796	4 × 10^–4	8 × 10^–4	3.8 × 10^–3	1.9 × 10^–4	0.050	3.3 × 10^–4	0.1–9.72	0.1–0.067	0.845	1.6 × 10^–4
MR	0.632	5.4 × 10^–4	3.1 × 10^–3	5.8 × 10^–3	1.9 × 10^–3	0.046	3.3 × 10^–3	–	–	0.689	2.2 × 10^–5
LR	1.816	3.3 × 10^–3	0.032	0.024	1.5 × 10^–4	0.022	1.8 × 10^–3	–	–	1.899	1.3 × 10^–4
Mean	1.081	1.4 × 10^–4	0.012	0.011	1.3 × 10^–3	0.039	1.4 × 10^–3	–	–	1.14	1.7 × 10^–4
Edori and Iyama (2020a, b)	0.167–0.267	0.06–0.30	0.003–0.029	0.093–0.25	2.514–3.13	0.06–0.30	0.0067–0.025	–	–	3.422–13.162	0.0996–0.194
Remarks	LC: cf > 1	LC: cf < 1	LC: cf < 1	LC:cf < 1	LC:cf < 1	LC: cf < 1	LC:cf < 1			LC_d: < 8	NP > 1

Heavy metals with cf < 1 points to low contamination (LC), heavy metals with < 8 indicates low degree of contamination (LCd). While pollution load index (PLI) < 1 shows no pollution (Hakason, 1980)
Potential risk (LPER) and the ecological risk index is below 150 which indicates low ecological risk. (LER)