Abstract
During the past decades, heavy metal pollution in agricultural soil and its impact on human health have been becoming one of the most important global environmental problems. In this research, heavy metal (Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr, Cd, Ni, As, Hg) concentrations were measured for four hundred and two soil samples collected from agricultural area within the Guangzhou-Foshan urban zone. Soil heavy metal pollution was evaluated used geoaccumulation index and potential ecological risk index. The dose response model proposed by the USEPA was used to estimate the potential health risk caused by heavy metals in agricultural soil. The results showed that: 1) Cd and Hg were the main heavy metal pollutants in agricultural soil of the study area. 89.1% and 93.3% of total soil samples suffered medium to heavy potential ecological risk caused by Cd and Hg, respectively. 2) The THI and TCR were respectively greater than 1.0 and 1.0×10-4, indicating that heavy metals in agricultural soil were likely to constitute non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks, both of which were mainly brought by product consumption, to the public in the study area. The non-carcinogenic risks were mainly caused by Cr and As, while the carcinogenic risks were mainly from Cr, Cd, and As.
Highlights
As the base of food production and the sink of pollutants, soil heavy metal pollution has been proving as one of the most important environmental problems [1,2,3,4,5]
Ecological and public health risks caused by soil heavy metal pollution have been becoming a focus of soil environment research [6, 7]
The main purpose of the present study are (1) to investigate content and its spatial distribution of eight heavy metals (Cd, Pb, Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn, Hg, As) for farmland within the study area; (2) to evaluate geoaccumulation degree and potential ecological risk of heavy metal pollution for agricultural soil; (3) to assess potential carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health risks caused by heavy metals for adults and children using a human health risk assessment model recommended by United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)
Summary
As the base of food production and the sink of pollutants, soil heavy metal pollution has been proving as one of the most important environmental problems [1,2,3,4,5]. Ecological and public health risks caused by soil heavy metal pollution have been becoming a focus of soil environment research [6, 7]. The impact of soil heavy metal pollution on human health was well-documented [5, 8, 9]. Comparing to urban and forest soils, agricultural soil is more important for soil environment research because of much more exogenous factors and due to its food production function [10,11,12,13].
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