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Abstract

The water scarcity has forced farmers to irrigate their farms with sewage water in order to grow vegetables. Nevertheless, urban sewage water has the adequate percentage of heavy metals that can readily destroy the soil, crops and human health. The current experiment took place by contrasting the levels of the toxic metals such as Cu, Zn, Fe, Mn, Cr, Cd, Ni, and Co in cauliflower and soil that had been irrigated with sewage water (SW) and canal water (CW). Two sites of sampling were used, fall and spring seasons. Sewage irrigated growths of cauliflower had very high levels of metals relative to crops irrigated in canals and Fe, Mn, Zn, Cd were strongly enriched. The principal component analysis revealed that there was a strong source of metals in waters, soils and plant samples which are mostly related to anthropogenic sources through sewage irrigation. The bioconcentration factors indicated an average to a high level of metal in the sewage irrigated cauliflower. The health risk indices and daily intake showed the possibility of non-carcinogenic health risks especially on Cr and Cd, and these values were above the safe levels. Such results indicate that the sewage water irrigation supports the accumulation of metals along the soil plant continuum and is an evident food safety risk. The paper underlines that there is the necessity to tightly regulate wastewater application in the process of vegetable production, as well as to monitor edible crops.

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