The Karst Plateau is characterized by elevated heavy metals (HM), the farmland soils in the Karst Plateau area is especially vulnerable to HM pollution. To cope with soil HM pollution and conduct precaution in Karst Plateau, the key bottleneck is to understand the pollution levels, sources, and priority‐control of HM. Hence, geochemical baselines of HM in farmland soils were established to accurately evaluate the pollution characteristics. Pollution sources were identified with multivariate statistics, geostatistical methods, and receptor models. Priority‐control of HM were distinguished via health assessments with a Monte Carlo simulation. A remarkable accumulation of Pb, Sb, Zn, As, and Cd was observed. Hotspots of As, Cd, Pb, Sb, and Zn clustered in the southwestern region of Hezhang. Pb–Zn related activities, cement product activities, coal mining, and coal combustion were dominant sources. Both noncarcinogenic risk and carcinogenic risk followed the order: children>adult females>adult males. As, Cd, and Pb were found to be priority contaminants in farmland soils in Hezhang.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metal(loid)s (HMs) pose risks to environmental and human health. Identification of priority control contaminants is important in guiding the management and control of these synchronous pollutants. A total of 247 soil samples were collected from 64 urban parks in the karst plateau city of Guiyang in SW China to determine the concentrations, spatial distributions, and health risks of PAHs and HMs. The results indicate that dibenz(ah)anthracene and benzo(a)pyrene are the main PAHs species of high ecological risk, and Cr, Mn, and Ni pose elevated ecological risk among the HMs. Four sources were identified for PAHs (biomass burning, coke oven, traffic sources, and coal burning) and HMs (traffic sources, coal burning, industrial sources, and natural sources). The non-carcinogenic risk (NCR) and total carcinogenic risk (TCR) of PAHs were all determined to be negligible and at acceptable levels, several orders of magnitude below those of HMs. The NCR and TCR values of HMs were relatively high, especially for children (11.9% of NCR > 1; 79.1% of TCR > 10
−4
). Coal burning and natural sources make the greatest contributions to the NCR and TCR values from karst park soils in Guiyang. Considering HMs bioavailability, NCR and TCR values were rather low, due to the high residual HM fractions. Integrated insights into source specific ecological and human health risk indicate future directions for management and control of synchronous PAH and HM pollution, particularly for karst plateau areas.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12403-023-00534-3.
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