International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—Sewage sludge is an unavoidable waste product generated from wastewater treatment. In line with sustainable practice, it has been applied worldwide in land applications due to its nutrient value. However, heavy metals (HMs) in sludge have become a major limiting factor for this way of disposal. This study aimed to determine the potential ecological and health risks of HMs in sludge for land application. Samples were collected from five wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in southern Jordan. Results showed that the levels of heavy metals in sludge were below the limit threshold of EPA, EU, and Jordanian standards. However, the average potential ecological risk index (RI) was 462.15, indicating a high-risk level. Results of health risk analysis revealed that the dominant route of HMs exposure was ingestion. It was shown that all WWTPs have no potential health risk associated with the presence of non-carcinogenic HMs in the sludge. However, sludge sampled from two investigated plants had carcinogenic risk for children. This study indicated that relying solely on regulatory limit values is inadequate to determine the suitability of sewage sludge for agricultural use and land applications; instead, a comprehensive risk assessment should be carried out.

Keywords—ecological risk assessment, health hazard assessment, heavy metal, land application, sewage sludge, wastewater treatment

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Cite: Laila A. Al-Khatib, Ahmed M. AlHanaktah, and Feras Y. Fraige, "Ecological and Human Health Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals in Municipal Sewage Sludge for Land Application," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 15, no. 5, pp.  277-287, 2024.

Copyright © 2024 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).