Abstract
The spatial assessment of four heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Pb, and As) in two mango fruit (Mangifera indica L.) varieties (Dasheri and Langra) collected from the Saharanpur district, Uttar Pradesh, India, was investigated in this study. The samples of ripe mango fruits were collected from the orchards of 12 major towns in the Saharanpur district from May to June 2022. Heavy metal analysis using atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) showed the presence of all selected heavy metals. Specifically, the concentration (mg/kg dry weight basis) range of Cd (0.01-0.08), Cr (0.11-0.82), Pb (0.02-0.15), and As (0.01-0.14) did not exceed the safe limits. The geospatial variation in the heavy metal concentration was significantly (p < 0.05) different as indicated by the inverse distance weighting (IDW) interpolation and analysis of variance (ANOVA) results. The multivariate statistical analysis using principal component (PC) and agglomerative hierarchical cluster (AHC) analyses revealed that the Saharanpur city location had the highest levels of selected heavy metals out of the 12 sampling locations. In this, the Dasheri variety was identified to have higher heavy metal concentrations in comparison to the Langra variety. Moreover, the health risk study using the target hazard quotient (THQ) confirmed that the levels did not exceed the safe health risk index (HRI) limit of 1. However, the health risk assessment for the child group showed relatively high HRI values (<0.35) compared to those of the adult group (<0.09). Therefore, considering the importance of the Saharanpur district in massive mango fruit production, this study provides vital information regarding the biomonitoring of heavy metals in the two most consumed varieties.