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A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Toxicology and Public Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2021) | Viewed by 16492

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Bozena Smreczak

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Guest Editor

Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation—State Research Institute, 24-100 Puławy, Poland
Interests: soil functions and ecosystem services; soil properties; land degradation; sustainable management of agricultural soils
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Alicja Kicinska

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Assistant Guest Editor

Faculty of Geology, Geophysics and Environmental Protection, AGH University of Science and Technology, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
Interests: environmental geochemistry; human health risk assessment; heavy metals; trace elements; waste management; water and soil contamination
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Eleonora Wcisło

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Assistant Guest Editor

Institute for Ecology of Industrial Areas, 40-844 Katowice, Poland
Interests: human health risk assessment of contaminated sites; evaluation of environmental health hazards in cities

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

An increasing world’s population of people and a rising demand for agricultural products and other goods provided by industry lead to an increased pressure on soils in every region. One of the main threat affecting soils on the local and global scale is pollution influencing soil functions and ecosystem services, causing deleterious effects towards soil organisms and substantially affecting human health.

Pollutants are released to the environment from many sources, such as accidental leaching from landfill or oil spills, the excessive usage of fertilizers and pesticides, irrigation with untreated water, application of sewage sludge, atmospheric deposition, especially in incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, transportation, and nuclear accidents. Pollutants in soils usually create a mixture inducing a different response from that of single substances which ranging from innocuous to toxic. For many emerging pollutants, the effect on living organisms, their dissipation rates, aging processes, degradation pathways and formation of by-products which may influence their toxicity are still unknown. In many countries, soil quality criteria of pollutant concentrations are supported by risk assessment tools. Such approaches apply various field investigations, laboratory studies, and models enabling prediction of the extent to which the soil pollution poses a real risk to the environment and human health.

This Special Issue provides information for better management of polluted soils and implementation of economically effective remediation techniques in order to ensure the living organisms safe and healthy conditions.

Dr. Bożena Smreczak
Prof. Dr. Alicja Kicinska
Prof. Dr. Eleonora Wcisło
Guest Editors

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Keywords

persistent organic pollutants (POPs)
metals and metaloids
pharmaceuticals, hormones, and toxins
mixtures of pollutants
bioavailability of pollutants
effects on soil biota
soil quality criteria
ecological risk assessment
remediation
risk management
human health risk assessment

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

24 pages, 3164 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Health Risk Assessment for the Residential Area Adjacent to a Former Chemical Plant

by Eleonora Wcisło and Joachim Bronder

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(5), 2590; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19052590 - 23 Feb 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2448

Abstract

A health risk assessment was carried out for the residents of Łęgnowo-Wieś settlement adjacent to a former Zachem Chemical Plant, Bydgoszcz, Poland. Due to the unique Zachem site history and contamination profile, an innovative strategy for soil sampling and contaminant selection was applied. The novelty in the developed strategy consisted of selecting substances for the health risk assessment, taking into consideration the location and boundaries of the groundwater contamination plumes in relation to contamination sources. This allowed limiting the number of the analysed contaminants. The risk assessment focused on the surface soil of a residential area, which was divided into 20 sampling sectors and 6 backyards with wells from which water was used for watering edible plants. A total of 80 inorganic and organic substances were determined, including metals, phenol, aniline, BTEX, diphenyl sulphone, chloroaniline, epichlorohydrin, hydroxybiphenyl, nitrobenzene, octylphenols, toluenediamine, toluidine, 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene. For the health risk assessment, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s deterministic method was applied. This applies conservative assumptions to obtain risk estimates protective for most of the potential receptors. Three exposure pathways were analysed: (1) incidental soil ingestion, (2) dermal contact with soil and (3) inhalation of fugitive soil particles and volatiles. In all sampling sectors and backyards, the total non-cancer risks (hazard index) were significantly lower than the acceptable level of 1. The acceptable cancer risk level for the single carcinogen of 1 × 10⁻⁵ was only insignificantly exceeded in the case of benzo(a)pyrene in three sectors and one backyard. The total cancer risks were lower than the acceptable level of 1 × 10⁻⁴ in all sampling sectors and all backyards. The findings show that the soil in the entire residential area is safe for the residents’ health and no remedial actions are required. However, since not all possible exposure pathways were analysed in this study, further research focused on assessing the health risk resulting from the consumption of locally grown food is strongly recommended. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Contamination and Ecotoxicity)

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17 pages, 1313 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ecological Risk Assessment Related to the Presence and Toxicity of Potentially Toxic Elements in Ashes from Household Furnaces

by Alicja Kicińska, Grzegorz Caba and Hubert Serwatka

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(3), 1770; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031770 - 4 Feb 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1601

Abstract

The study material was comprised of 23 samples of ashes generated after the combustion of conventional and alternative fuels combined with selected fractions of municipal waste. The analyses performed involved determining the total concentration of As, Al, Cr, Fe, Ni, and their bioaccessible, ion-exchange, and carbonate-bound fractions. It was found that all of the samples analysed may display an elevated level of susceptibility to the reduction processes, which undoubtedly increases the mobility of trace elements, including the toxic ones. The predominant elements were Al and Fe, whereas considerably lower concentrations were observed for Ni, Cr, and As. The percentage share of the ion-exchange and carbonate-bound fraction ranged from 49% of the total concentration for As to as much as 0.35% in the case of Fe. The calculated Risk Assessment Code index points to a high risk related to the presence of As, medium to low risk related to the presence of Ni and Cr, and low to no risk related to the presence of Fe and Al. The calculated values of the Ecological Risk Index, associated with the combustion of selected municipal waste fractions and low-quality hard coals, combusted individually or in combination with different types of wood, point to a very high ecological risk. This is mainly related to the high concentrations and toxicity of As. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Contamination and Ecotoxicity)

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13 pages, 4531 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessment of Soil Contamination with Potentially Toxic Elements and Soil Ecotoxicity of Botanical Garden in Brno, Czech Republic: Are Urban Botanical Gardens More Polluted Than Urban Parks?

by Vaclav Pecina, Martin Brtnicky, Marie Balkova, Jitka Hegrova, Martina Buckova, Tivadar Baltazar, Roman Licbinsky and Maja Radziemska

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(14), 7622; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147622 - 17 Jul 2021

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2703

Abstract

Though botanical gardens are an important and widely visited component of urban green spaces (UGS) worldwide, their pollution is rarely studied. The aim of this study was to assess botanical garden soil contamination and ecotoxicity and to evaluate whether urban botanical gardens are more contaminated than urban parks. Soil assessments showed serious contamination with Cd, Pb and Zn, emitted predominantly by traffic, agrochemicals and past construction and demolition waste. The discovery of hazardous historical ecological burden in the UGS calls for the necessity of detailed surveys of such areas. Despite prevailing moderate-to-heavy contamination, the soil was only slightly ecotoxic. Maximum immobilisation inhibition of Daphnia magna reached 15%. Growth of Sinapis alba L. was predominantly stimulated (73%), and Desmodesmus subspicatus Chodat was exclusively stimulated, possibly due to soil alkalinity and fertiliser-related nutrients. The hypothesis of a higher contamination of urban botanical gardens compared to urban parks was confirmed. However, urban parks can face a greater risk of soil ecotoxicity, hypothetically due to decreased activity of soil organisms resulting from adverse soil conditions caused by active recreation. The results highlight the need for an increased focus on botanical and ornamental gardens when assessing and managing UGS as areas potentially more burdened with contamination. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Contamination and Ecotoxicity)

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18 pages, 4371 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Study of Sorption Kinetics and Sorption–Desorption Models to Assess the Transport Mechanisms of 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic Acid on Volcanic Soils

by Lizethly Cáceres-Jensen, Jorge Rodríguez-Becerra, Carlos Garrido, Mauricio Escudey, Lorena Barrientos, Jocelyn Parra-Rivero, Valentina Domínguez-Vera and Bruno Loch-Arellano

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(12), 6264; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18126264 - 9 Jun 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3537

Abstract

The sorption behavior of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) in the abundant agricultural volcanic ash-derived soils (VADS) is not well understood despite being widely used throughout the world, causing effects to the environment and human health. The environmental behavior and risk assessment of groundwater pollution by pesticides can be evaluated through kinetic models. This study evaluated the sorption kinetics and 2,4-D sorption–desorption in ten VADS through batch sorption experiments. Differences in the sorption extent for the fast and slow phases was observed through the

IPD

model where 2,4-D sorption kinetics was controlled by external mass transfer and intra organic matter diffusion in Andisols (

C_{1}

≠ 0). We confirmed from the spectroscopic analysis that the carboxylate group directly drives the interaction of 2,4-D on Andisol soil. The MLR model showed that

I E P

F e_{D C B}

, and

p H \times S i l t

are important soil descriptors in the 2,4-D sorption in VADS. The Freundlich model accurately represented sorption equilibrium data in all cases (

K_{f}

values between 1.1 and 24.1 µg^1−1/n mL^1/ng⁻¹) with comparatively higher sorption capacity on Andisols, where the highest hysteresis was observed in soils that presented the highest and lowest

O C

content (

H

close to 0). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Contamination and Ecotoxicity)

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12 pages, 1437 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sequestration of Mercury in Soils under Scots Pine and Silver Fir Stands Located in the Proximity to a Roadway

by Piotr Gruba, Mateusz Kania, Dawid Kupka and Marcin Pietrzykowski

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(9), 4569; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18094569 - 26 Apr 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2015

Abstract

Forest soils are the main source of mercury (Hg) in stream water. Stocks of Hg in forest soils are related to several factors, including forest species composition. In this study, the potential source of Hg pollution was a relatively new roadway traversing forested areas. We compared Hg accumulation in soils of two coniferous species: Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and silver fir (Abies alba Mill.). The experimental plots were located near the S7 expressway in Central Poland. The stands differed in the length of time they had been exposed to Hg, because different parts of the roadway were built and opened to traffic at different times. We analyzed 480 soil samples from organic horizons (O) and the top 10 cm of mineral soil (A) sampled from six plots. The overall average Hg concentrations (irrespective of forest stand, n = 240) was 0.225 mg kg⁻¹ in the O horizons and 0.075 mg kg⁻¹ in the mineral horizons. The Hg concentration in the O horizons was more than three times greater in fir stands than that in pine stands. The average Hg:C ratios in the O and A horizons were 1.0 and 2.3 mg Hg kg⁻¹ C, respectively. Our data does not clearly show the effect of road on Hg accumulation near the road. The concentrations of Hg in investigated soils adjacent to the roadway were only slightly higher than ranges reported for unpolluted areas, and no clearly affected by the vicinity of roadway. In contrast to the other reports, our data indicate a significant impact of tree species on Hg concentrations in both the O and A horizons. Moreover, the average Hg:C ratio was strongly dependent on the tree species. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Contamination and Ecotoxicity)

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20 pages, 3030 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Response of Red Clover (Trifolium pratense L.) to Separate and Mixed Inoculations with Rhizobium leguminosarum and Azospirillum brasilense in Presence of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons

by Karolina Furtak, Karolina Gawryjołek, Anna Gałązka and Jarosław Grządziel

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(16), 5751; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17165751 - 9 Aug 2020

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2793

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the impact of co-inoculation Rhizobium sp. and Azospirillum sp. on plant (Trifolium pratense L.) growth in the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contamination (anthracene, phenanthrene, and pyrene). Eight strains from the genus Rhizobium leguminosarum bv. trifolii were selected for biotest analysis. Two methods of inoculation were used in the chamber experiment: (1) R. leguminosarum alone and (2) a combined inoculant (R. leguminosarum and Azospirillum brasilense). For comparison, non-contaminated controls were also used. The results demonstrated that co-inoculation of plants with Rhizobium and Azospirillum resulted in more root and shoot biomass than in plants inoculated with R. leguminosarum alone. The results indicated that application of a co-inoculation of bacteria from Rhizobium and Azospirillum species had a positive effect on clover nodulation and growth under the condition of PAH contamination. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Soil Contamination and Ecotoxicity)

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