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Cadmium (Cd) is one of the most serious soil contaminants in China, and it poses an increasing risk to human health as large amounts of Cd are emitted into the environment. However, knowledge about soil Cd concentrations and the human health risks of these concentrations at a national scale is limited. In this study, we conducted a review of 190 articles about soil Cd concentrations during 2001 to 2010. The study involved 146 cities in China, and we quantified the risks to human health according to different regions. The results showed that elevated Cd levels were present compared to the background value of soil in 1990, and the soil Cd concentrations in the Guangxi province exceeded even the class III Soil Environmental Quality standard, which is the limit for the normal growth of plants. The Chinese soil Cd concentrations ranged from 0.003 mg kg(-1) to 9.57 mg kg(-1). The soil Cd concentrations had the following trend: northwest > southwest > south central > east > northeast > north. The sources of soil Cd are mainly from smelting, mining, waste disposal, fertilizer and pesticide application, and vehicle exhaust, etc. but differentiated in various regions. The soil Cd contamination in urban areas was more serious than contamination in the agricultural areas. Currently, there is no significant non-carcinogenic risk in any of the provinces. Regarding the different exposure pathways, the dermal pathway is the primary source of soil Cd exposure, and the risk associated with this pathway is generally hundreds of times higher than the risk for an ingestion pathway. For most of the provinces, the health risk to the urban population was higher than the risk to the rural population. For each population, the carcinogenic risk was less than 10(-6) in most of the provinces, except for the urban population in the Hunan province. If the other exposure pathways are fully considered, then the people in these areas may have a higher carcinogenic risk. This review provides a comprehensive assessment of soil Cd pollution in China, and it identifies policy recommendations for pollution mitigation and environmental management in the relevant regions.

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An inventory of chromium emission into the atmosphere and water from anthropogenic activities in China was compiled for 1990 through to 2009. We estimate that the total emission of chromium to the atmosphere is about 1.92×105t. Coal and oil combustion were the two leading sources of chromium emission to the atmosphere in China, while the contribution of them showed opposite annual growth trend. In total, nearly 1.34×104t of chromium was discharged to water, mainly from six industrial categories in 20 years. Among them, the metal fabrication industry and the leather tanning sector were the dominant sources of chromium emissions, accounting for approximately 68.0% and 20.0% of the total emissions and representing increases of15.6% and 10.3% annually, respectively. The spatial trends of Cr emissions show significant variation based on emissions from 2005 to 2009. The emission to the atmosphere was heaviest in Hebei, Shandong, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Shanxi, whose annual emissions reached more than 1000t for the high level of coal and oil consumption. In terms of emission to water, the largest contributors were Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong and Zhejiang, where most of the leather production and metal manufacturing occur and these four regions accounted for nearly 47.4% of the total emission to water.

The objective of this study is to investigate tungsten (W) contamination in soil and its enrichment in rice in the area of the world's largest and longest-operating W mines in China. Root zone soil and rice plants were sampled at 15 sites in the agricultural field adjacent to W mines and analyzed for Al, Fe, Mn, Sc, and W contents and W chemical forms in the soil samples and W contents in the rice root, stem, leaf, and grain samples. Results showed that W content in the soil ranged from 3.99 to 43.7 mg kg−1, with more than 90% of W in the residual fraction, showing its low mobility and bioavailability. Average W contents in the rice root, stem, leaf, and grain were 7.06, 2.34, 4.76, 0.17 mg kg−1, respectively. In addition, they were linearly independent of W content and chemical forms in the soil. Average enrichment factor values were 0.39, 0.13, 0.28, and 0.01 for the root, stem, leaf, and grain, respectively. In can be concluded that W mining activity in the Dayu county contaminated the nearby agricultural soil and led to W bioaccumulation in the rice. This may pose a health risk to residents via food and soil ingestion, which should be a focus of scrutiny.

Taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the nationally funded Water Resources Integrated Planning and Investigation of China program (WRIPI), a model was established to estimate non-point source pollutant loads in a large-scale basin (ENPS-LSB) on the basis of hydrological processes and pollutant transport. The model made use of Environment for Visualizing Images software (ENVI) and Interactive Data Language (IDL) and took the characteristics of present-day China into account: a huge rural population scattered widely, marginal rural infrastructure and livestock cultivation based on scatterfeeding. The model was divided into two sections: one on dissolved and one on adsorbed pollutant loads. The dissolved loads were divided into four different types: those originating from agricultural fields, urban areas, rural residential areas, and livestock. The study was undertaken in the Yangtze River Basin. The results showed the chemical oxygen demand (COD), the total nitrogen (TN), the total phosphorous (TP), and the ammonia nitrogen (NH 3 -N) loads to be 2.6 9 10 6 , 1.6 9 10 6 , 9.3 9 10 5 and 3.1 9 10 5 tons, respectively, in the year 2000. The dissolved COD resulted mainly from rural residential areas and livestock; 76.8% of the dissolved TN and 86.4% of the dissolved TP produced were from agricultural fields. The Yangtze River Delta, the lower reaches of the Han River, and part of the Dongting Lake, Taihu Lake and Poyang Lake basins all had relatively high dissolved pollutant loads; adsorbed nitrogen and phosphorus loads were mainly observed in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River Basin. Dissolved loads were most affected by human activity, whereas adsorbed loads were most affected by natural factors. The results showed that the model performed well on large scale, describing pollutant loads effectively. This makes it possible to properly consider not only point source pollutant discharge but also non-point source pollution in the Yangtze River Basin. Combining point source discharge investigation with the ENPS-LSB model could assist environmental management with controlling water pollution.