A novel method to estimate the aggregate pollution index in a typical limestone mining and cement producing environment.

This study presents a novel method to estimate the aggregate pollution index (API) within the residential communities around a limestone mining and cement producing environment. The ranges for the air quality index (AQI), pollution load index in the topsoil (PLI), pollution load index in the subsoil (PLI), heavy metal pollution index in the water (HPI), and radiological external hazard index (H) were 5.99 to 57.97, 1.65E-07 to 3.6E-04, 1.7E-08 to 3.5E-04, 52.17 to 1053.13, and 0.0694 Bq.kg to 0.550, respectively. The AQI, PLI, PLI, HPI, and H revealed nonuniform patterns of variations across the communities, though there was a significant correlation between the PLI and the PLI, and between the HPI and the H; and a moderate correlation between the HPI and the AQI, between the HPI and the PLI, and between the HPI and the PLI. The measured quality indicators (MQI), and the calculated pollution indices (CPI) were subjected to the multivariate analysis. The principal components (PC) split the ten communities the same way in the CPI and the MQI. The API, using the PC, ranged from 3 to 9. The Afami, Balogun, and Akinbo communities had the highest API, while the Ewekoro and Itori communities had the lowest. The CPI was 41% of the MQI, with respect to the within-cluster variance, indicating that the CPI-based clustering was more reliable. Both the CPI and the MQI attributed a unique pollution signature to the Ewekoro community, while the remaining nine communities shared a common pollution status with the Ibese community.