Health Risk Assessment of Trace Metals in Various Environmental Media, Crops and Human Hair from a Mining Affected Area
Wushuang Xie 1
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 18, Shuangqing Road, Beijing 100085, China
2
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19, Yuquan Road, Beijing 100049, China
3
Institute of Environmental Engineering, School of Metallurgy and Environment, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14(12), 1595; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14121595
Received: 24 November 2017 / Revised: 12 December 2017 / Accepted: 14 December 2017 / Published: 18 December 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Studies on Heavy Metals and Health)
Long term exposure to trace metals in various media is of great concern for people living in known pollution sources, such as mining and industrial activities. Health risk assessment and human hair analysis can provide important information for local environmental management. Information on distribution characteristics of trace metals in soil, water, sediment, air, local crops, and human hair from a typical mining area in southern China was collected. Results show there exists severely trace metal contamination in soil, sediment, and air. Arsenic and Pb contents in the local children’s hair are higher than the upper reference values, and the accumulation of residents’ hair trace metals shows great correlation with the ingestion and inhalation pathways. Arsenic contributes 52.27% and 58.51% to the total non-cancer risk of adults and children, respectively. The cancer risk of Cd in adults and children are 4.66 and 3.22 times higher than the safe level, respectively. Ingestion exposure pathway of trace metals largely contributes to the total non-cancer and cancer effect. The metals As, Cd, and Pb are major risk sources and pollutants that should be given priority for management, and ingestion pathway exposure to trace metals through soil and crops should be controlled.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
trace metals; multi-media; hair; risk assessment; exposure assessment
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Xie, W.; Peng, C.; Wang, H.; Chen, W. Health Risk Assessment of Trace Metals in Various Environmental Media, Crops and Human Hair from a Mining Affected Area. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2017, 14, 1595.
Show more citation formats
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
- Supplementary File 1:
Supplementary (PDF, 545 KB)
