Institute for Environment and Development (LESTARI), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Bangi 43600, Malaysia.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jul 28;18(15):7997. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18157997.
Chemical pollution in the transboundary Langat River in Malaysia is common both from point and non-point sources. Therefore, the water treatment plants (WTPS) at the Langat River Basin have experienced frequent shutdown incidents. However, the Langat River is one of the main sources of drinking water to almost one-third of the population in Selangor state. Meanwhile, several studies have reported a high concentration of Arsenic (As) in the Langat River that is toxic if ingested via drinking water. However, this is a pioneer study that predicts the As concentration in the Langat River based on time-series data from 2005-2014 to estimate the health risk associated with As ingestion via drinking water at the Langat River Basin. Several time-series prediction models were tested and Gradient Boosted Tree (GBT) gained the best result. This GBT model also fits better to predict the As concentration until December 2024. The mean concentration of As in the Langat River for both 2014 and 2024, as well as the carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health risks of As ingestion via drinking water, were within the drinking water quality standards proposed by the World Health Organization and Ministry of Health Malaysia. However, the ingestion of trace amounts of As over a long period might be detrimental to human health because of its non-biodegradable characteristics. Therefore, it is important to manage the drinking water sources to minimise As exposure risks to human health.
马来西亚跨境冷岳河的化学污染来自点源和非点源都很常见。因此，冷岳河流域的水处理厂（WTPS）经常发生关闭事件。然而，冷岳河是雪兰莪州近三分之一人口的主要饮用水源之一。同时，有几项研究报告称，冷岳河中砷（As）的浓度很高，如果通过饮用水摄入，会有毒性。然而，这是一项基于 2005-2014 年时间序列数据预测冷岳河 As 浓度的开创性研究，以估计通过冷岳河流域饮用水摄入 As 相关的健康风险。测试了几种时间序列预测模型，梯度提升树（GBT）获得了最佳结果。该 GBT 模型也更适合预测到 2024 年 12 月的 As 浓度。冷岳河 2014 年和 2024 年的 As 平均浓度，以及通过饮用水摄入 As 的致癌和非致癌健康风险，都在世界卫生组织和马来西亚卫生部提出的饮用水质量标准范围内。然而，由于 As 具有不可生物降解的特性，长期摄入微量 As 可能对人类健康有害。因此，管理饮用水源以将人类健康暴露于 As 的风险降至最低非常重要。
