Arsenic Contamination [UPSC Notes]

A recent study reflects that arsenic contamination can seriously hamper the cognitive capability of the person. In this article, you can read more about arsenic contamination in India and its harmful effects on human health and the environment. This topic is relevant for the IAS exam environment and ecology segment of GS paper III.

What is Arsenic?

Arsenic is a natural component of the earth’s crust and is widely distributed throughout the environment in the air, water and land. It is highly toxic in its inorganic form.

• People are exposed to elevated levels of inorganic arsenic through drinking contaminated water, using contaminated water in food preparation and irrigation of food crops, industrial processes, eating contaminated food and smoking tobacco.
• Long-term exposure to inorganic arsenic, mainly through drinking water and food, can lead to chronic arsenic poisoning. Skin lesions and skin cancer are the most characteristic effects.

Effects of Arsenic Contamination

• Chronic exposure to arsenic could be creating a ‘silent pandemic’ affecting large portions of the global population. 
• Arsenic exposure, previous studies have shown, is particularly harmful to the poor. 
  • The economic and nutritionally poor face greater cognitive impairment from arsenic exposure.
• Exposure to arsenic was strongly linked to food intake, indicating that background inorganic and organic arsenic in foods is a major contributor to arsenic exposure in many parts of India beyond those regions where arsenic exposure from groundwater is naturally known to be high.
  • West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Manipur have long been identified as regions with high background arsenic levels.
• Arsenic intake from food was most commonly correlated with rice intake, which is more commonly consumed in south India and where the highest mean arsenic levels were observed.
  • Importantly, arsenic exposure may be an easily modifiable risk factor: while treatment of water is possible but complicated and costly, cooking rice in a certain way removes the naturally occurring arsenic in brown rice by over 50% and in white rice by 74%, while not reducing micronutrients in the rice.

Conclusion: A common strategy employed is to encourage piped water access rather than groundwater extraction, install arsenic removal plants and – if groundwater extraction is inevitable – encourage extraction from aquifers that are deeper than 100 m, instead of shallow aquifers, which generally contain higher amounts of arsenic.

Arsenic Contamination:- Download PDF Here