Multipotential Toxic Metals Accumulated in Urban Soil and Street Dust from Xining City, NW China: Spatial Occurrences, Sources, and Health Risks.

Abstract

A total of 155 urban soil and 157 dust samples were collected from Xining city (NW, China) with the objective to systematically investigate the spatial occurrences, sources, and health risk status of potential toxic metals (PTMs) bound in urban soil and street dust. Results established by Geographic Information System tools with inverse distance weighted interpolation technique indicated that the spatial status of 24 multi-PTMs varied with their concentration levels in urban soils and street dusts in monitored local areas. However, they had the similar sources in soil and dust. It was found that Bi, Ga, Nb, Ni, Rb, Sr, Th, U, Y, Zr, As, Mn, Nb, Ti, and V would be possibly predominated by nature material, whereas contamination of Ba, Cr, Cu, Pb, and Zn was clearly related to traffic-related sources. Peculiar associations among Sb, Sn, Ce, and Co were possibly enriched in soil and dust very close to the industrial activities. It was noted that PTMs in urban soil was an important contributor to them in dust. Compared with the potential ecological risk index of all PTMs, Sb posed very high risk. The calculated hazard index and cancer risk of all PTMs suggested the acceptable range both to noncarcinogenic and carcinogenic risk to children and adults except for the case of Cr. However, the noncarcinogenic risk for children was usually higher compared with adults. Although the noncarcinogenic and carcinogenic risk were not significant, the risk of Cr above the threshold for children and adults were observed in most local sites, which should be given more attention.