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Carcinogenic risk evaluation for human health risk assessment from soils contaminated with heavy metals
Cocârţă, D. M.; Neamţu, S. & Reşetar Deac, A. M.
Abstract
Human activities have progressively increased in
recent years. Consequently, significant environment deterioration resulted. Soils have a particularly varied vulnerability to heavy metal pollution, especially in the vicinity
of industrial areas. Heavy metal contamination of soil may
induce risks and hazards to humans and the ecosystem,
while toxic metals in soil can severely inhibit the
biodegradation of organic contaminants. This paper is
focused on human health risk assessment from extremely
contaminated soil with heavy metals, mainly with carcinogenic elements. The study refers to an agricultural area
in the vicinity of an old metallurgical processing industrial
facility. The contaminants evaluated in the present paper
are beryllium (Be), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), nickel
(Ni) and lead (Pb). Contamination level is pointed out
through laboratory analysis results of soil samples taken
from 0–0.2 m, 0.2–0.4 m soil layers and up to 2.1 m soil
depth. Some heavy metal concentrations (Cd, Cr and Pb)
exceed the intervention thresholds for sensitive areas, as
they are stipulated in the national regulation in Romania.
The identified average concentration levels of Cd, CrVI and
Pb in the first layer of the investigated land are 23.83, 7.71
and 704.22 mg/kgd.w, respectively. The results show that
the potential risk of human health is relevant (higher than
the acceptable one after World Health Organization) and a
possible solution for the remediation should become a
major concern for the investigated area.
Keywords
Exposure; Metals; Risk assessment; Soil pollution
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