Abstract
AbstractRecently sustainable and efficient land development and the potential reutilization values of abandoned mines (i.e., industrial, arable, and tourism) have been attracting worldwide attention. However, environmental impacts after rehabilitation practices are often ignored and field data are lacking. What remains unknown is an understanding how the risk of soil trace metal(loid)s (TMs) respond to short‐term rehabilitation of abandoned gold mines and the potential value for following targeted remediation. We found that a high level of TM cadmium (Cd) and arsenic (As)] contamination and significant health risk to humans, limited land reutilization in rehabilitation scenarios. Feedback from soil TMs to rehabilitation is of potential value for following targeted remediation. Specifically, (1) the major pollutants we studied were Cd and As. Cadmium poses a considerable ecological risk as evidenced by Igeo, contamination factor, and risk assessment code, and a much higher bioavailability evidenced by non‐residual fractions (42.42%). Arsenic has the lowest environmental availability with 90.99% in residual fraction; (2) spatial distributions of TMs were similar. Sites with serious contamination were mainly located in the southwest of the study area, close to the abandoned mine; Results of principal component analysis suggested that mining activities were the main anthropogenic pollution sources; (3) there was no non‐carcinogenic risk and a higher carcinogenic risk was found in adults than in children. Targeted remediation techniques are needed to mitigate carcinogenic risks posed by As and Cr. This study emphasized the necessity of assessment of soil TMs risk in abandoned gold mines with short‐term rehabilitation and offered crucial data utilized to optimize time parameters (short‐term) towards sustainable and efficient land development.
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