Study of Heavy Metals in Tungabhadra River Near Harihar

Abstract

Study Of Heavy Metals In Tungabhadra River Near Harihar In air, soil and water, toxic heavy metals are global problems that are increasingly threatening humanity. Metals are notable for their wide environmental dispersion, their tendency to accumulate in select human body and plant tissues, and their overall potential to be toxic even at relatively lower exposure levels.

Some metals, such as copper and iron, are essential to life and play irreplaceable roles such as the functioning of critical enzyme systems. Other metals are xenobiotics, i.e. they have no useful role in human physiology (and most other living organisms) and may be toxic even at trace levels of exposure, even worse, as in the case of lead and mercury. However, even those essential metals have the potential to become harmful at high levels of exposure, a reflection of a very basic toxicology principle-the dose makes the poison (Howard 2002).

Tunga and Bhadra rivers flow through densely populated regions and are exposed to maximum anthropogenic exploitation, resulting in a regular increase in the degree of pollution. They also receive domestic and agricultural waste.

Conclusion

For many generations, the problem of heavy metal pollution can remain a legacy of mass industrial activity and is likely to escalate further in the future. The compilation of past and present heavy metal concentration catalogs is an activity of great importance in this regard.

Heavy metal pollution for our surface and subsurface water resources is a rapidly growing problem. It may not be the biggest pollution problem right now, but it’s not going to help just waiting for it to go away or solve itself.

We need to be aware of the problems that heavy metals create, so we can all contribute to the solutions in our own little ways. Our step towards a clean future is clean water. We need to inform people about how heavy metal pollution gets into our environment so that they can be more aware of the threats of these pollutants.