Developing an integrated framework for source apportionment and source-specific health risk assessment of PAHs in soils: Application to a typical cold region in China

Abstract

Here, a new integrated methodology framework has been proposed for source apportionment and source-oriented risk evaluation, and applied to identify the characteristics, sources and health risks of PAHs in the soils of a typical cold region in Northeastern China. To this end, a large-scale data set containing 1780 soil samples and 16 priority PAHs has been collected from the study area. Two advanced receptor models, positive matrix factorization (PMF) and multivariate curve resolution-weighted alternating least-squares (MCR-WALS), have been comparatively employed to apportion the pollution sources of soil PAHs, with the help of a set of modified literature PAH source fingerprints. Further, the apportionment results have been incorporated into a probabilistic incremental lifetime cancer risk model for assessing the source-specific health risk of soil PAHs. Notably, the PMF and MCR-WALS models have apportioned essentially same results. The coal combustion and gasoline engine are identified as the main contributors of soil PAHs, with contributions of 57.9–58.1% and 25.2–22.2%, respectively. The health risks posed by PAHs in the soils are negligible for both adult and children; relatively, source-oriented risk assessment shows coal combustions make the largest contribution to the total risk of PAHs (56.1%), followed by gasoline engine (22.5%) and coke oven (21.4%).