LAUSR

Abstract The contamination of several trace elements (TEs) in groundwater is one of the most environmental issues associated with sustainable development in many countries including Bangladesh. Therefore, this study aims to elucidate source apportionment of contamination, and their potential health risk in Rangpur district, Bangladesh using multivariate statistics, and Monte Carlo simulation. The results of the study showed that the average concentrations of iron, manganese and barium were exceeded the permissible limits for drinking water set by WHO and Bangladesh standards. However, the analysis for sources of contamination index: principal component analysis, correlation coefficient, and cluster analysis (CA) revealed that geogenic sources were much contributed than anthropogenic activities for elevating concentrations of TEs in the study area. Both R-mode and Q-mode of CA was used to show the relationship between the location of the clusters and the sources of contamination. The results of non-carcinogenic risk evaluation revealed that hazard index (HI) values for both age groups were exceeded the safe limits (>1.0) in several locations set by US EPA, suggesting a reasonable human health risk. The carcinogenic risk value for As exposure surpassed the US EPA range of 1 × 10−6 to 1 × 10−4, with higher risk for children compared to adults. An uncertainty study showed that the concentration of As was the most sensitive parameter affecting the potential health risk. In a whole, arsenic in drinking water may pose health impacts to some extent in local residents; thus, special attention and groundwater monitoring should focus on As contamination in groundwater of the study region.