Throughout the year, people flock to the Red Sea's shoreline for tourism and fishing. The current study aims to document heavy metal contamination and human health assessment in 30 surface sediment samples collected along the Hurghada shoreline in Egypt. To estimate sediment contamination, the pollution index (PI), pollution load index (PLI), degree of contamination (Cdeg), and Nemerow integrated pollution index (NIPI) were calculated, while the chronic daily intake (CDI), hazard index (HI), cancer risk (CR), and total lifetime cancer risk (LCR) were determined on both adults and children via ingestion, dermal, and inhalation pathways. The HM averages (μg/g dry weight) were in the following order: Fe (345.70) > Mn (49.36) > Pb (41.98) > Zn (7.47) > Ni (1.73) > Cu (1.23) > Co (1.09) > Cd (0.14). Pollution indices found that Hurghada coastal sediments were moderately polluted with Pb but not with the other HMs. The average CDI values were in the descending order of ingestion > dermal > inhalation pathways, and the average CDI values on children were higher than those on adults. The hazard index (HI) for adults and children was Pb > Ni > Cd > Fe > Mn > Co > Cu > Zn, and all values were <1.0, showing that these HMs had no substantial non-carcinogenic impacts on the human body. LCR results show that children have greater values than adults. LCR values in adults were lower than 1 × 10-6, indicating no substantial health concerns, while in children they ranged from 1 × 10-6 to 1 × 10-4, indicating no significant risk to human health.
Keywords: Coastal sediment; Hazard index; Health risk assessment; Heavy metals; Red Sea coast; cancer risk.
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