Characteristics, Source Apportionment, and Health Risk of Heavy Metals in the Soils of Peri-urban Shanghai Chongming Island

Cheng Shen; Min Wang; Jinghua Su; Huilun Sun; Wenan Hu; Kuangfei Lin; Jian Wu; Fuwen Liu; Xiurong Chen; Chenyan Sha

doi:10.1021/acsomega.4c03647

Characteristics, Source Apportionment, and Health Risk of Heavy Metals in the Soils of Peri-urban Shanghai Chongming Island

ACS Omega. 2024 Oct 8;9(42):42734-42745. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.4c03647. eCollection 2024 Oct 22.

Authors

Cheng Shen^{1

2}, Min Wang², Jinghua Su², Huilun Sun¹, Wenan Hu³, Kuangfei Lin¹, Jian Wu⁴, Fuwen Liu⁵, Xiurong Chen¹, Chenyan Sha²

Affiliations

¹ State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Environmental Risk Assessment and Control on Chemical Process, School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China.
² State Environmental Protection Engineering Center for Urban Soil Contamination Control and Remediation, Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences, Shanghai 200233, China.
³ School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China.
⁴ Shanghai Technology Center for Reduction of Pollution and Carbon Emissions, Shanghai 200235, China.
⁵ School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai 201418, China.

Abstract

Heavy metals resulting from human activities pose significant threats to human health and the soil ecosystem. In the current study, 917 soil samples from Chongming Island in Shanghai, China, were examined for eight heavy metals. The sources of contamination were identified by using a Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF) model. Meanwhile, spatial interpolation and Moran's I index were applied to validate the model in terms of spatial linkages. The results revealed that the average concentrations of As, Cd, Hg, Pb, Cr, Cu, Zn, and Ni in the soil were 8.87, 0.19, 0.06, 28.75, 76.01, 37.74, 88.93, and 30.33 mg kg^-1, respectively. The PMF analysis proved that heavy metals in the soil of the study area are mainly influenced by traffic sources (Cr and Pb), industrial sources (Zn, Cd, and Cu), station sources (Hg), and natural sources (As and Ni), with contribution rates of 22.23, 26.25, 36.38, and 15.14%, respectively. The combination of Moran's index and the spatial analysis method not only verified the analytical results of the receptor model on the one hand but also served as a supplementary explanation for the sources of heavy metals in the soil. The health risk assessment indicated that noncarcinogenic values were below the threshold values. The total carcinogenic risk (R _T) of different heavy metals has a descending order of Cr > As > Ni > Cd. The R _T values of multiple heavy metals for children and adults were 5.28 × 10^-04 and 4.10 × 10^-05, respectively, which were close to the risk threshold. Therefore, attention should be paid to the health risks, especially for children's skin contact, which is the main exposure pathway.