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During this century, many lakes in India have received elevated inputs of heavy metals as a result of an increase in industrial, urban discharge and atmospheric deposition. The toxic heavy metals entering the ecosystem may lead to geo-accumulation, bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Heavy metals are important environmental pollutants threatening the health of human populations and natural ecosystems. In the present investigation, heavy metals concentration of Pb, Cd, As, Cu and Zn, were studied in Ramgarh Lake water and sediment in the month of December 2009. A method based on toxic-response factor was applied to assess the potential ecological risk of these heavy metals to the sediment of water body. The results i indicated that the accumulating coefficient (C ) sequence of the metals was Zn>Cu>Cd>Pb>As, while the f i sequence of the potential ecological risk coefficient (E posed by the metals was Cd>As>Cu>Pb>Zn). The average indexes of potential ecological risk factors (Ri) for metals were 76.53, which shows low ecological risk for the Ramgarh Lake. The calculated potential ecological risk indices show that heavy metals in sediment were within the permissible limits except Cd, which indicates moderate pollution index. Lake Ramgarh was classified between moderate to good quality and found to have low metal concentrations in water and sediment, which indicates no significant anthropogenic metals input to the lake.

Keywords

Geo-Accumulation, Heavy Metals, Potential Ecological Risk, Ramgarh Lake.

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