Spectroscopic studies to assess the pollution level of minerals heavy metals and radiation hazards in Ponnai river sand Tamil Nadu with statistical approach

Abstract

River sand pollution is a major environmental problem in both newlinedeveloped and developing countries due to growing urbanization and newlineassociated human activities such as waste water discharge from domestic and industries, sludge dumping, mining and agriculture activities. This type of newlineactivities found at many different locations along the length of the river and newlinepollution enters into the river. River sand is one of the main building materials and commonly used to construct malls and residential areas. People seem to be extracting and using these sands from various parts of the river without knowing their effects. When people using the river sand for construction, there is a chance to affect their health due to high concentration of minerals, heavy metals and natural radionuclides in sand samples. Twenty-five samples were collected at different locations of Ponnai River, Tamil Nadu, India to assess the pollution level of minerals, heavy metals and associated radiation hazards. To assess the level of pollution, collected samples are characterized by different spectroscopic techniques. A required discussion is given on pollution and sand mining, river pollution and its adverse impact, major sources of river pollution and effects of river pollution on human health. This discussion includes the details of study area, possible pollution sources and sample collection procedure. Determination of textural characteristics that is percentage of sand, silt and clay are carried out for collected samples using mechanical sieves method and histograms are used to discuss the distribution of the same. newline newline