Abstract
Indigenous zinc smelting (IZS) is a backward technique that releases a great deal of heavy metal(loid)s into the environment. However, the contamination of heavy metal(loid)s in ground dust and the associated health risks in such areas are poorly known. In this study, a former IZS area in Guizhou, China, was surveyed during 2008–2018 with 15 elements (Ag, As, Bi, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, In, Ni, Pb, Sb, Sn, Tl, Zn) being analyzed. The results indicate that most elements (e.g., Ag, As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Sb, Sn, Zn) in ground dust decreased significantly after the cessation of the IZS in 2006; nevertheless, some elements still remained at relatively high levels in 2018, e.g., Pb (average: 762 ± 647 mg/kg), Zn (average: 1287 ± 753 mg/kg), Cd (average: 7.76 ± 5.06 mg/kg), and As (average: 41.9 ± 34.8 mg/kg), indicating they might come from the local contaminated soils, slag residues and smelting potteries. In terms of the impacts on human health, children have both higher non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks than that of adults, with the latter subpopulation having a lower risk than the threshold values. Pb and As were the two elements with the highest non-carcinogenic risk for children, the hazard index of local children was still higher than the threshold of 1 (e.g., 1.43 for As, 2.09 for Pb) in 2018. The carcinogenic risk of As exposure to children dropped more than two times to 6.42 × 10−7 in 2018, which falls below the tolerable range (10−6–10−4). This study revealed that although the concentration of heavy metal(loid)s in ground dust and linked health risk in the IZS area has reduced dramatically after the cessation of IZS, continued removal of slag residues and smelting potteries is necessary for further decreasing the human health risk.
Highlights
Xin-Guan-Zhai village was selected as the zinc smelting impacted area (Figures 1 and 2) and Leizhuang village in suburb Guiyang was selected as the control site, which experiences a similar climate in comparison to the Xin-Guan-Zhai village (IZS area) but has no Indigenous Zn smelting (IZS) or other direct heavy metal point contamination sources
Concentration of heavy metal(loid)s in ground dust collected from the IZS area and control sites are shown in Table 1; the large variation of most elements, especially in the IZS area, indicates a high skewness of data
IZS area in Guizhou were tracked over 2008–2018 after the cessation of IZS in 2006
Summary
Heavy metal(loid)s could induce a serial of adverse effects on human beings and animals and deteriorate the environment through natural and anthropogenic activities [1,2,3,4]. Lead-zinc smelting is an important source of potentially toxic elements [5,6,7]. China ranked the largest Zn/Pb/Cu producer in the world for more than 20 years [8]. Besides the largescale smelting technique, small-scale or indigenous smelting had played an important role in the past decades in some areas of China, such as Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guizhou provinces in Southwest China [8,9,10]. Soils in Guizhou Ag As Bi Cd Co Cr Cu Hg In Ni
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