Distribution and health risk assessment to heavy metals near smelting and mining areas of Hezhang, China

Abstract

Mining and smelting areas in Hezhang have generated a large amount of heavy metals into the environment. For that cause, an evaluative study on human exposure to heavy metals including Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cr, As, Cd, Pb, Sb, Bi, Be, and Hg in hair and urine was conducted for their concentrations and correlations. Daily exposure and non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk were estimated. Sixty-eight scalp hair and 66 urine samples were taken from participants of different ages (6-17, 18-40, 41-60, and ≥ 65 years) living in the vicinity of an agricultural soil near mine and smelting areas. The results compared to the earlier studies showed an elevated concentration of Pb, Be, Bi, Co, Cr, Ni, Sb, and Zn in hair and urine. These heavy metals were more elevated in mining than in smelting. Considering gender differences, females were likely to be more affected than male. By investigating age differences in this area, high heavy metal concentrations in male's hair and urine existed in age of 18-40 and ≥ 66, respectively. However, females did not present homogeneous age distribution. Hair and urine showed a different distribution of heavy metals in different age and gender. In some cases, significant correlation was found between heavy metals in hair and urine (P > 0.05 and P > 0.01) in mining area. The estimated average daily intake of heavy metals in vegetables showed a great contribution compared to the soil and water. Non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk values of total pathways in mining and smelting areas were higher than 1 and exceeded the acceptable levels. Thus, the obtained data might be useful for further studies. They can serve as a basis of comparison and assessing the effect of simultaneous exposure from heavy metals in mining and smelting areas, and potential health risks from exposure to heavy metals in vegetables need more consideration.

Potential Ecological Risk and Human Health Risk Assessment of Heavy Metal Pollution in Industrial Affected Soils by Coal Mining and Metallurgy in Ostrava, Czech Republic

“…The high correlation among heavy metals observed in soils significantly reflect the anthropogenic input from industrial activities. Low or negative correlation of heavy metals in soils can also refer to others metal sources relating to natural processes [40,41,42,43].…”

“…The toxic response factor Tri is defined as 40, 30, 10, 5, 5, 5, 2, 2, 1, 1 and 1 for Hg, Cd, As, Cu, Pb Ni, Cr, V, Zn, Mn and Ti. [27,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42].…”

Accumulation, temporal variation, source apportionment and risk assessment of heavy metals in agricultural soils from the middle reaches of Fenhe River basin, North China

“…Previous studies have only focused on the contribution of HM sources to health risk. [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] However, exposure of both ecosystem and human beings to HMs can be harmful, 36,37 and thus evaluation of the contributions of different HM sources to ecological and human health risks is important but has rarely been explored in previous studies.…”

Exposição a metais em população adulta residente em áreas industriais: revisão sistemática da literatura

“…O único estudo de categoria-I que avaliou sangue não observou diferença estatisticamente significativa nas concentrações de As entre os grupos 21 . O As na urina em estudos de categoria-II variou de 0,64 a 9,2 µg/l em expostos 26,33 , tendo o estudo francês, com grupo de comparação, reportado maior concentração em expostos do que nos controles 26 . Considerando as fontes poluidoras, apenas um estudo (categoria-I) avaliou As em população vizinha a uma área de queima de carvão, na China 8 , o qual observou concentrações muito elevadas deste metal na urina.…”