Health Risk Assessment Due to Heavy Metals Exposure via Consumption of Bivalves Harvested from Marudu Bay, Malaysia

Concern over health risk from consumption of bivalves originating from Marudu Bay is escalating due to the rapid agricultural development surrounding the bay. This has motivated us to estimate the health risk index (HRI) of heavy metals from four commercially important and highly exploited bivalve species which are abundant in the bay. Samples (n = 30) of green mussel (Perna viridis), Asiatic hard clam (Meretrix meretrix), Pacific oyster (Crassosstrea gigas) and marsh clam (Polymesoda expans) were acquired from fishermen in Kg. Teritipan, Marudu Bay. These bivalves were analyzed for heavy metals content using the Inductively Couples Plasma-Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES). The study found that the mean contents of Arsenic (As) and Manganese (Mn) in all analyzed bivalves exceeded the permissible limits as well as copper (Cu), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) in Pacific oyster, and Zn in marsh clam. It was also noticed that consumption of different bivalve species may bring about health risk from different metals as indicated by varied Total Hazard Index (THI) values. Consumption of the four bivalves was noticed to promote high health risk from As intoxication. Although metal pollution index (MPI) analysis revealed that the bivalves from the bay are currently not seriously impacted by heavy metal pollution, vigorous efforts should be taken to preserve the natural condition of the bay for years to come. There are several ways to minimize health issues from bivalve consumption which include keeping the bivalve natural habitat away from heavy metals pollution by strictly enforcing environmental laws and policies, establishing zones for bivalve fisheries, monitoring heavy metals concentration in bivalve on a regular basis and making depuration process a compulsory requirement in every seafood restaurant throughout the country.

Application of Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies to Marine Aquaculture for Future Food:Imperatives,Challenges and Prospects

This study was undertaken to examine the options and feasibility of deploy­ing new technologies for transforming the aquaculture sector with the ob­jective of increasing the production efficiency.Selection of technologies to obtain the expected outcome should,obviously,be consistent with the crite­ria of sustainable development.There is a range of technologies being sug­gested for driving change in aquaculture to enhance its contribution to food security.It is necessary to highlight the complexity of issues for systems approach that can shape the course of development of aquaculture so that it can live-up to the expected fish demand by 2030 in addition to the current quantity of 82.1 million tons.Some of the Fourth Industrial Revolution(IR4.0)technologies suggested to achieve this target envisage the use of re­al-time monitoring,integration of a constant stream of data from connected production systems and intelligent automation in controls.This requires ap­plication of mobile devices,internet of things(IoT),smart sensors,artificial intelligence(AI),big data analytics,robotics as well as augmented virtual and mixed reality.AI is receiving more attention due to many reasons.Its use in aquaculture can happen in many ways,for example,in detecting and mitigating stress on the captive fish which is considered critical for the success of aquaculture.While the technology intensification in aquaculture holds a great potential but there are constraints in deploying IR4.0 tools in aquaculture.Possible solutions and practical options,especially with re­spect to future food choices are highlighted in this paper.