Phytoremediation: Environmentally sustainable way for reclamation of heavy metal polluted soils.

An integrated approach to quantifying ecological and human health risks from different sources of soil heavy metals

A partition computing-based positive matrix factorization (PC-PMF) approach for the source apportionment of agricultural soil heavy metal contents and associated health risks.

Contamination assessment and source apportionment of heavy metals in agricultural soil through the synthesis of PMF and GeogDetector models.

The main purpose of the current study is to assess the contamination status, human health risk, and spatial distribution of heavy metals in the urban soils from the Medak province in India. For this purposes, a total of 40 urban surface soil samples were collected and analyzed seven heavy metals including chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), cadmium (Cd), arsenic (As), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn). The results of the study showed that the concentration of Cr (81–751 mg/kg), Cu (2–180 mg/kg), Zn (25–108 mg/kg), Pb (5–77 mg/kg), Ni (1–50 mg/kg), As (0.4–14 mg/kg), and Cd (0.1–4.2 mg/kg), respectively, was found above their natural background values. The geo-accumulation index analysis indicated that except Zn, all other tested heavy metals had a range of moderately to heavily polluted/contaminated in the study region. Spatial distribution pattern analysis inferred that the soil heavy metal (Cu, Cr, Zn, and Ni) pollutions in western regions of Medak were relatively larger than that in central and eastern regions. The hazard index (HI) values for Cu, Cd, Zn, As, Pb, and Ni were below 1, implying that there is no non-carcinogenic risks exposure from these heavy metals in soil for children and adults in the study region. However, HI value for Cr ranged from 3.08E−01 to 2.86E+00 for children, implying that children were relatively vulnerable population than adults in the current study region. Comparatively speaking, 67.5% and 100% total carcinogenic risks for Cr values for adults and children were larger than the acceptable threshold value of 1.0E−04, indicating chromium poses the greatest carcinogenic risk in the study region.

Ai Ning Zhang

Papers

Quantitative contributions of the major sources of heavy metals in soils to ecosystem and human health risks: A case study of Yulin, China