Towards sustainable and efficient land development: Risk of soil heavy metal(loid)s in abandoned gold mines with short‐term rehabilitation and potential value for targeted remediation

Abstract

Recently sustainable and efficient land development and the potential reutilization values of abandoned mines (i.e., industrial, arable, and tourism) have been attracting worldwide attention. However, environmental impacts after rehabilitation practices are often ignored and field data are lacking. What remains unknown is an understanding how the risk of soil trace metal(loid)s (TMs) respond to short-term rehabilitation of abandoned gold mines and the potential value for following targeted remediation. We found that a high level of TM cadmium (Cd) and arsenic (As)] contamination and significant health risk to humans, limited land reutilization in rehabilitation scenarios. Feedback from soil TMs to rehabilitation is of potential value for following targeted remediation. Specifically, (1) the major pollutants we studied were Cd and As. Cadmium poses a considerable ecological risk as evidenced by I geo , contamination factor, E i r and risk assessment code, and a much higher bioavailability evidenced by non-residual fractions (42.42%). Arsenic has the lowest environmental availability with 90.99% in residual fraction; (2) spatial distributions of TMs were similar. Sites with serious contamination were mainly located in the southwest of the study area, close to the abandoned mine; Results of principal component analysis suggested that mining activities were the main anthropogenic pollution sources;(3) there was no non-carcinogenic risk and a higher carcinogenic risk was found in adults than in children. Targeted remediation techniques are needed to mitigate carcinogenic risks posed by As and Cr. This study emphasized the necessity of assessment of soil TMs risk in abandoned gold mines with short-term rehabilitation and offered crucial data utilized to optimize time parameters (short-term) towards sustainable and efficient land development.

From risk assessment to land planning. The case of a trace element‐contaminated area in Chile

“…Similarly, Berasaluce et al (2019) and Salmani-Ghabeshi et al (2016) found similar results. In the latter study, arsenic ingestion through accidental ingestion of soil and house dust in localities close to the VIC was identified to pose a carcinogenic risk on infants (1-5 years), which contrasts with other contamination cases (e.g., Cao et al, 2022). In addition to environmental assessments, the studies by Madrid et al (2022Madrid et al ( , 2023 concluded that environmental pollution in Quintero and Puchuncaví localities has induced epigenetic changes in the genome and oxidative stress on DNA of its inhabitants, with arsenic being the primary contaminant.…”

Research on the Evaluation Model of Ecological Restoration Benefits of Industrial Waste Land Based on DEA Algorithm

“…The spatial resources and landscape conditions of the abandoned mine site are extremely rich, with good design and transformation basis. How to carry out landscape transformation of the abandoned mine site in the background of the "post-industrial era" on the basis of this design, how to deal with the large number of land destroyed due to underground mining, arable land erosion rate reduced by a series of ecological and environmental damages is a serious challenge facing the present [4][5][6].…”