Abstract
Traditionally, lead (Pb) in rice grains has been thought to be mostly derived from soil, and the contribution of aerosol Pb remains so far unknown. Based on a meta-analysis, we surprisingly found rice Pb content decreased proportionally with urban atmospheric Pb concentrations in major rice-growing provinces in China during 2001–2015, suggestive of the strong influence of long-range Pb transport on agricultural environment. With the combination of field survey, field experiment, as well as a predictive model, we confirmed high contribution of atmospheric exposure to rice grain Pb in China. We for the first time developed a predictive mathematical model which revealed that aerosol Pb accumulation ratios of rice grains were related to both grain weight and accumulation types. We successfully predicted the national-scale rice Pb in China on the basis of the public data of urban PM2.5 from 19 rice-growing provinces and proposed a seasonal atmospheric Pb limit of 0.20 µg m−3 based on the safe threshold level of Pb in rice, which was much lower than the current limit of 1 µg m−3 set in China.
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