Priority control factors screening for soil pollution with heavy metal in southwestern China from the view of source-specific environmental risk

Abstract

Quantitative source apportionment of ecological and health risks is essential to identify the priority control factors for risk control of soil heavy metals (HMs). A total of 144 topsoil samples were collected from Southeastern Yunnan Province to explore sources using positive matrix factorization (PMF), and source-specific risks were then evaluated by combining PMF and probabilistic risk assessment. The results indicated agricultural activities (16.1%), industrial activities (37.3%), vehicle emissions (19.6%), and natural sources (27.1%) were potential sources for soil HMs. Probabilistic ecological risk assessment revealed that As (70.62%) and Cr (61.52%) had higher ecological risk compared with other soil HMs. Probabilistic health risk assessment indicated that noncarcinogenic risk descended in the order of children (91.73%) > teenagers (70.66%) > adults (13.29%) > older adults (14.64%). Children had the highest carcinogenic risk (90.21%), while the lowest carcinogenic risk (5.58%) was found for teenagers. Source-specific risk assessment showed that industrial activities contributed the most to the ecological and carcinogenic risks, followed by natural sources, agricultural activities, and vehicle emissions. Moreover, the contributors to noncarcinogenic risks were ranked in the decreasing order of industrial activities, agricultural activities, natural sources, and vehicle emissions. Thus, industrial activities, As and Cr were determined the priority control factor in this study. The results provided scientific information to propose the strategies for pollution prevention and risk control of soil HMs.

Keywords:

• Soil heavy metals
• probabilistic risk assessment
• source apportionment
• priority control factor

Authors’ contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Shiqi Chen and Mei Lei. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Guanghui Guo and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Ethical approval

The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration. The submitted work was original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language.

Consent to participate

Research do not involve the Human Participants and/or Animals.

Consent to publish

All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Availability of data and materials

All authors make sure that all data and materials as well as software application or custom code support their published claims and comply with field standards.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Technology Research and Development Program of China [grant number 2018YFC1800104].