Abstract
Food chain models are essential tools to assess risks of soil contamination in view of product quality including fodder crops and animal products. Here we link soil to plant transfer (SPT) models for potentially toxic elements (PTEs) including As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, Sb, U and Zn with models describing accumulation in animal organs. Current EU standards for food products and acceptable daily intake levels (ADI) for humans were used as critical limits. The combined model is used to assess the impact of soil contamination on animal health, product quality and human health using data from 100 arable fields. Results indicate that 42 existing arable fields near industrial and mining sites are unsuitable for animal grazing in view of food safety due to elevated intake of Cd, Cu, Hg and Pb by cows and sheep. At 10 sites daily intake levels of As by cows exceeded threshold concentrations regarding the quality of animal products. The food chain model also was used inversely to derive soil threshold concentrations in view of EU fodder standards. Calculated threshold levels in soil for As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Hg and Zn appear to be in line with those proposed or used in other EU countries. As such the approach applied here can form a conceptual basis for a more harmonized risk assessment strategy regarding the protection of animal and human health.
Highlights
The EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection has clearly identified food and biomass production as one of the key soil functions since the quality and safety of feed and food that are traded freely within the internal market can influence animal and human health throughout Europe (EC, 2006a)
Recent studies reported that the use of a constant bioconcentration factor (BCF) is not appropriate to describe the transfer of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) from soils to plants in a wide range of soils
In the present study a chain model approach was tested to assess the transfer of PTEs from soils to feed and food crops and from crops to grazing livestock and for humans
Summary
The EU Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection has clearly identified food and biomass production as one of the key soil functions since the quality and safety of feed and food that are traded freely within the internal market can influence animal and human health throughout Europe (EC, 2006a). It is crucial to develop tools to characterize the pathways relating to soil contamination, plant uptake, dietary transfer of contaminants to animals and consumer exposure from dietary intake of plant and animal products. Such tools can be used to determine threshold concentrations of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in soils in order to deliver safe and high-quality products (de Vries et al, 2007; Franz et al, 2008).
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