Chemosphere 252 (2020) 126591

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Chemosphere
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/chemosphere

Health risk assessment of heavy metals in agricultural soils and

identification of main influencing factors in a typical industrial park in
northwest China
Rui Zhang a, b, Tao Chen a, b, *, Yu Zhang a, b, Yuhao Hou a, b, Qingrui Chang a, b
a
College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, 712100, China
b
Key Laboratory of Plant Nutrition and the Agri-environment in Northwest China, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Yangling, Shaanxi, 712100,
China

h i g h l i g h t s g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t

The average human health risk in the

region is above acceptable criteria.

Dietary intake is the most important
route of exposure to soil heavy
metals.

Distance from the factories and alti-
tude are the main influencing factors.

Attention should be paid to the syn-
ergy between factors.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The accumulation of heavy metals (HMs) in the soil poses a threat to human health. In this study, 62 pairs
Received 13 January 2020 of topsoil and wheat grain samples were collected from a typical industrial park in northwest China, and
Received in revised form the human health risks associated with cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), nickel
10 March 2020
(Ni), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) were assessed through multiple exposure pathways. Meanwhile, the
Accepted 21 March 2020
Available online 24 March 2020
contribution of different environmental factors and their interactions were explored by using geo-
detector. Results showed that Cd concentration in the soil ranged from 0.307 to 2.491 mg kg1, with a
Handling Editor: A. Gies median value of 0.588 mg kg1, and almost half of the samples exceeded the pollution threshold. In
comparison, other elements in the soil were below their mandatory thresholds. However, it is note-
Keywords: worthy that in addition to the median Cd concentration in wheat grains of 0.062 mg kg1 (0.018
Heavy metals e0.246 mg kg1), the Pb concentration also reached 0.2 mg kg1 (0.1e0.7 mg kg1), with a sample over-
Health risk assessment standard rate of 48.39%. In addition, the health risk assessment results showed that the average total
Dietary exposure hazard index (HIt) for adults and children was 1.22 and 1.53, and the total carcinogenic risk (TCRt) was
Geo-detector
7.0  104 and 2.32  104, respectively, both above acceptable criteria. Dietary intake was the main
Industrial park
route of exposure. Among various factors, distance from industrial enterprises, altitude, and soil pH,
distance from major roads were the most influential contributors. Their interactions were more prom-
inent than the effects of single factors and this synergy deserves attention.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

* Corresponding author. College of Natural Resources and Environment, North-

west A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, 712100, China.
E-mail address: tchen@nwsuaf.edu.cn (T. Chen).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.126591
0045-6535/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 R. Zhang et al. / Chemosphere 252 (2020) 126591
1. Introduction
In recent years, heavy metal (HM) pollution in the environment
has attracted increasing attention (Cao et al., 2010; Chabukdhara;
Nema, 2013). Prolonged exposure to HMs can cause them to
accumulate in the body and induce various diseases (Wang et al.,
2018). To protect human health, it is necessary to comprehen-
sively assess the health risks posed by HMs in the environment.
Much effort has been devoted to assessing the risks to human
health of HMs in various environmental media such as soil, sedi-
ment and dust (Doyi et al., 2018; Safiur Rahman et al., 2019). In
addition to occupational exposure, ingestion of contaminated food
or water may be the main route for HMs to enter the body (Khan
et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2019). However, in many studies, the risk
of dietary intake was not always given sufficient attention (Chen
et al., 2018; Lian et al., 2019). This creates great uncertainty for a
comprehensive understanding of pollution and development of
appropriate control plans.
Exploring the impact of environmental factors can help reduce
the risk of pollution to human health. Multivariate statistics and
geostatistics are often used to identify various factors in natural
processes and human activities (Mikkonen et al., 2018; Shi et al.,
2020). Although they play an important role in revealing the in-
fluence mechanism, these methods often ignore the multi-
collinearity and spatial relationships of the drivers (Luo et al., 2019;
Shi et al., 2018). In addition, the contribution of various factors is
also difficult to quantify (Qiao et al., 2017). To address these
shortcomings, the geo-detector based on spatial stratified hetero-
geneity was developed, which used spatial variance to test and
quantify the relative contributions of various factors (Wang et al.,
2010). Its basic idea is that if the spatial variation of target vari-
able is in accordance with the spatial variation of an influence
variable, the contribution of this factor to the target variable will be
large (Ding et al., 2019). Geo-detector has proven to be an effective
tool. After first being used to study the effects of environmental
factors on neural tube defects, this method has been applied to
many fields such as plant ecology (Ren et al., 2016), house prices
(Wang et al., 2017), atmospheric pollution (Yang et al., 2016),
desertification (Du et al., 2016) and so on. However, to date, no
reports have been seen in the health risk studies.
The study area is situated in the north of Baoji city, the second
largest city in Shaanxi province. This is a typical industrial park,
which has been engaged in the production of heavy industry such
as smelting, coal power and chemical industry since 2000. In 2009,
there was a public health incident in the region where some chil-
dren’s blood lead levels exceeded the limit (Wang et al., 2014). To
find out the cause, some soil pollution surveys were conducted in
this area (Fan and Wang, 2017). However, in the process, insuffi-
cient attention has been paid to the dietary intake risks affected by
HMs in soil, which brought uncertainty to obtain more detailed
pollution information in this region and further developing regu-
latory measures. Therefore, it is very necessary to carry out a
comprehensive risk assessment of soil HMs in this area. The ob-
jectives were: 1) to assess the enrichment and pollution levels of
HMs in soils; 2) to reveal the human health risk associated with soil
HMs, including dietary and non-dietary pathways; 3) to quantify
the contribution of various environmental factors; and 4) to explore
synergy and/or antagonism between factors.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Study area
This study area is about 20 km2 (Fig. 1). The terrain is a typical
two-order stepped tableland, high in the northeast and low in the
southwest, with a height difference of 80 m. The Qian River flows
from northwest to southeast along the western edge of the study
area. The climate is temperate continental monsoon climate, with
the average annual precipitation and the annual temperature of
616 mm and 11.4  C, respectively. The prevailing wind direction is
from northwest to southeast. Main soil types are Loessial soil
(Hapli-Ustic Cambosols), Cumulic cinnamon soil (Earth-cumuli-
Orthic Anthrosols), and Silt soil (Usti-Alluvic Primosols).
Three major industrial enterprises are distributed in the region.
Among them, the lead-zinc smelting plant (LZSP, built in 2004) and
the thermal power plant (TPP, built in 2001) are located in the
middle and north of the first-order tableland, respectively, with an
altitude of about 630 m. The LZSP produces 100,000 tons of lead
and zinc each year, while TPP generates 2.52 million kilowatts of
electricity annually. In addition, there is also a coal chemical en-
terprise (CCP, built in 2010, mainly producing methanol) located in
the southeast of the second-order tableland in the region, with an
elevation of about 690 m. CCP consumes 3.3 million tons of coal per
year and produces 1.5 million tons of methanol. These three busi-
nesses are local leading enterprises. Some villages and farmland are
scattered around them.
2.2. Sample collection and measurement
According to the distribution of cultivated land, 62 pairs of
topsoil (0e20 cm) and wheat grain samples were collected during
the wheat harvest in mid-May 2018. The sampling locations are
shown in Fig. 1. At each sampling site, a composite sample was
obtained by randomly mixing 5e6 subsamples of about 0.2 kg, and
its center coordinates were recorded by GPS. Soil samples were
naturally air-dried for one week, removed other debris, and then
sieved through a 100-mesh plastic sieve for later use. Wheat ears
were washed with deionized water, dried at 105  C for 30 min, and
then 80  C to a constant weight. The dried wheat samples were
threshed, ground up, and sieved (80-mesh) prior to laboratory
analyses. Since local drinking water is mainly from municipal water
supply network and its quality meets the drinking requirements,
the health risks of drinking water are not considered in this study.
To determine the total metal concentration, soil sample of 0.5 g
was weighed, placed into a PVC digestion vessel, and then digested
with 10 ml HNO3eHClO4eHCleHF. Wheat samples (0.1 g) were
digested with a mixture of HNO3 and H2O2. The digested solution
was diluted to 50 ml with 2% HNO3 for determination (ACCC, 1983).
In addition, the bioavailability of HMs in soil was obtained by the
diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) method. After 10 g soil
samples were dissolved with DTPA, CaCl2, and triethanolamine
buffer for 2 h, the extractable metal concentration in the filtrate was
analyzed (ACCC, 1983). Moreover, soil pH was measured by pH
meter with a soil/water ratio of 1:2.5. Organic matter (OM) was
determined by wet oxidation at 180  C with a mixture of potassium
dichromate and sulfuric acid (ACCC, 1983). Mercury was deter-
mined by atomic fluorescence spectrophotometry (AFS), whereas
Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Ti and Zn were measured by inductively coupled
plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). In the process of measure-
ment, duplicate tests were carried out, and quality control pro-
cedures were conducted using state first-level standard materials
(GSS30, 31, 33 and 34).
2.3. Calculation of enrichment factor
Enrichment factors (EFs) are used to describe the enrichment
level of HMs, defined as follows (Buat-Menard and Chesselet,
1979):
 R. Zhang et al. / Chemosphere 252 (2020) 126591 3

Fig. 1. Study area and sampling locations.

synthetical score of multiple elements. Ci is the concentration of the

 i-th metal, and Si is the evaluation standard of the i-th element. In
Ci
Cref sample
this study, the national control thresholds were chosen as the
EF ¼ (1) evaluation criteria (Table 1). The categories of PI or SPI were: safety


Ci (0.7), alert (0.7e1), low pollution (1e2), moderate pollution
Cref background
(2e3), and severe pollution (>3) (Chen et al., 2008; Zhao et al.,
2020).
where Ci is the concentration of the i-th metal (mg kg1); Cref is the
concentration of reference element for normalization. The most
2.5. Health risk assessment
common normalizing element are Sc, Al, Fe, Mn, Ti etc. (Han et al.,
2006; Salati and Moore, 2010). In this study, Ti was finally chosen as
In this study, four exposure pathways associated with soil HMs
the reference element due to its relative stability in the earth crust
were explored: soil particle ingestion, dermal contact, soil particle
(Quevauviller et al., 1989). The background values of soil metals in
inhalation, and dietary intake of wheat. The estimated average daily
Shaanxi Province are shown in Table 1 (CEMS, 1990). The categories
intake of HMs (ADI, mg kg1 day1) via soil ingestion (ADIing),
of EFs were: deficiently to minimal enrichment (EF < 2), moderate
dermal contact (ADIdermal), inhalation (ADIinh) and food intake
enrichment (2  EF < 5), significant enrichment (5  EF < 20), very
(ADIfood) was as follows (Cheng et al., 2018):
high enrichment (20  EF < 40), and extremely high enrichment
(EF  40) (Sutherland, 2000). Csoil IRs  EF  ED 6
ADIing ¼ 10 (4)
BW  AT
2.4. Pollution assessment
Csoil  SA  AF  ABS  EF  ED 6
ADIdermal ¼ 10 (5)
To assess the level of HM pollution in the soil, a single factor BW  AT
pollution index (PI) and a synthetic pollution index (SPI) were
calculated: Csoil IRi  EF  ED
ADIinh ¼ (6)
PEF  BW  AT
C
PI ¼ i (2)
Si Cplant IRp  EF  ED 6
ADIfood ¼ 10 (7)
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi BW  AT
u
u ðCi Þ2 þ ðCi Þ2
t Si max Si average where Csoil, the concentration of HMs in soil (mg kg1); Cplant, the
SPI ¼ ð Þ (3)
2 concentration of HMs in wheat grain; IRs and IRp, the ingestion rate
of soil and wheat (mg day1); EF, the exposure frequency
where PI is the pollution index of each element and SPI is the (365 d year1); ED, the exposure duration (year); BW, the average
4 R. Zhang et al. / Chemosphere 252 (2020) 126591

Table 1
Statistical summary of heavy metal concentrations (mg kg1) in soil and wheat, and soil pH and OM (g kg1).

Elements Mean ± S.D. Min. Max. Median CV % Background valuesa Threshold valuesb

Soil Cd 0.689 ± 0.416 0.307 2.491 0.588 60.44 0.094 0.6

Cr 67.5 ± 4.3 56.7 76.9 68.2 6.34 62.5 250
Cu 29.2 ± 1.9 25.6 36.6 29.1 6.60 21.4 100
Hg 0.1124 ± 0.0436 0.0416 0.2722 0.1018 38.75 0.030 3.4
Ni 36.7 ± 2.7 31.9 47.8 36.6 7.43 28.8 190
Pb 40.8 ± 15.5 27.1 112.4 37.95 37.95 21.4 170
Zn 101.0 ± 19.6 79.0 191.1 97.5 19.46 69.4 300
Ti 3717 ± 209 3400 4454 3685 5.62 3800 e
pH 8.00 ± 0.12 7.67 8.26 7.99 1.53 e e
OM 23.99 ± 5.84 12.73 38.51 23.11 24.33 e e

Elements Mean ± S.D. Min. Max. Median CV % Number of grain samples Threshold valuesc
over threshold (percent)

Wheat Cd 0.076 ± 0.050 0.018 0.246 0.062 65.68 14 (22.58%) 0.1

Cr 0.3 ± 0.1 0.2 0.6 0.2 31.69 0 1.0
Cu 5.3 ± 2.5 3.8 23.6 5.0 46.63 e e
Hg 0.0030 ± 0.0007 0.0021 0.0057 0.0031 23.27 0 0.02
Ni 0.2 ± 0.1 0.1 0.4 0.2 30.41 0 1.0
Pb 0.2 ± 0.1 0.1 0.7 0.2 63.06 30 (48.39%) 0.2
Zn 39.9 ± 7.7 27.6 61.9 38.7 19.40 e e
a
The background values of soil metals for Shaanxi province (CEMS, 1990).
b
The risk screening values for soil contamination (pH > 7.5, GB 15618e2018) (MEEC, 2018).
c
The maximum allowable values for cereals and oils (GB 2762e2017) (NHFPCC, 2017).

body weight (kg); AT, the average exposure time (days); SA, the
surface area of the skin exposed to pollutants (cm2); AF, the skin
adherence factor (mg (cm2 h)1); ABS, the dermal absorption factor
(unitless); IRi, the inhalation rate (m3 day1); PEF, the emission
factor (m3 kg1). Detailed parameter values are listed in Table S1.
The potential non-carcinogenic risk was quantified using Haz-
ard Quotients (HQ, unitless), as proposed by USEPA (1989). HQ is a
ratio of the estimated ADI to reference dose (RfD), as follows:
ADIij
HQ ¼
RfD
where i, the number of metal elements; j, the number of exposure
pathways; RfD, reference dose of each metal under different
exposure routes (Table S2). The Hazard Index (HI, unitless) refers to
the sum of more than one HQ for multiple substances and/or
multiple exposure pathways (USEPA, 2002).
X where q is the power determinant of each factor for the health risk,
HI ¼ HQ
For each HM, the HQ for all exposure routes can be summed to
obtain the overall risk of an individual metal (HIi). Similarly, a
hazard index HIj can account for the cumulative risk of all HMs
under a specific exposure pathway (Singh et al., 2018). The total
hazard index (HIt) was used to assess the total health risk posed by
multiple metals under multiple exposure routes. If HQ or HI(x)
is  1, the assumption is that there are no significant risks of non-
carcinogenic effects. In contrast, non-carcinogenic risks are likely to
occur (USEPA, 2011).
The carcinogenic risk (CR) index is the probability of an indi-
vidual developing any type of cancer over a lifetime due to carci-
nogenic exposure, as follows:
CR ¼ ADI  SF
where SF is the cancer slope factor of each metal under different
exposure routes, as shown in Table S2. In this study, only Cd, Cr, Ni
and Pb were treated as potential carcinogenic contaminants to
calculate CR. Similar to HI(x), on the assumption that hazardous
risks are additive, the CR for all carcinogens and/or all exposure
routes can be summed to different forms total cancer risk (TCR(x))
(Cao et al., 2015). The acceptable risk for regulatory purposes is in
the range from 1.0  106 to 1.0  104 (USEPA, 2004).
2.6. Geo-detector analysis
Geo-detector is used to measure the spatial stratification het-
erogeneity of dependent variable Y, and to explore how indepen-
dent variable X explains the spatial pattern of Y (Wu et al., 2016). Its
main principle is to investigate whether the spatial distributions of
(8) Y and X tend to be the same. The more identical, the higher the
association is between them, which can be characterized by q
statistic, defined as follows (Wang et al., 2016):
1 XL
q¼1  N s2 (11)
Ns h¼1 h h
2
(9)
N is the number of samples, Nh refers to the number of samples in
each category, and L represents the number of classification cate-
gories. The s2 stands for the variance of Y and s2h is the variance for
each classification category Y. For q2[0,1], q ¼ 1 means that Y is
completely determined by X, q ¼ 0 indicates that there is no as-
sociation between X and Y, and the q value indicates that X can
explain 100  q% of Y. In this model, X must be a categorical vari-
able. If not, it needs to be discretized based on expert knowledge or
a categorization algorithm (Wang et al., 2010). The optimal
numbers of categorization were determined by the maximum q
value and the corresponding p value used in significance test
(Wang et al., 2016).
In geo-detector model, the interaction detector is defined to
study the interactive effects between two factors (symbolized by ∩)
(10) by comparing q (X1∩X2) with q (X1) and q (X2). X1∩X2 represents a
new stratum created by overlaying X1 and X2 (Shi et al., 2018). If q
(X1∩X2) ¼ q (X1) þ q (X2), then the two factors are independent of
each other; if q (X1∩X2) > q (X1) þ q (X2), then the two factors
nonlinearly enhance each other; if Max (q (X1), q (X2)) < q
(X1∩X2) < q (X1) þ q (X2), then the two factors bi-enhance each
other (Wang et al., 2010). Detailed principles can be found in
published literatures (Qiao et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2016).
 R. Zhang et al. / Chemosphere 252 (2020) 126591 5

2.7. Data source and processing of influencing factors
Thirteen environmental factors were explored in this study.
Among them, human activity factors are: distance from thermal
power plant (DTPP), distance from LeadeZinc smelting plant
(DLZSP), distance from coal chemical enterprise (DCCP), distance
from main roads (DMR), distance from villages (DV) and road
density (RD); natural factors include: elevation (E), aspect (A) and
slope (S), as well as soil pH, OM, soil type (ST) and Normalized
Vegetation Index (NDVI). Soil data came from the survey results of
cultivated land quality in Shaanxi Province. Terrain parameters
were derived from DEM data (10 m) generated from a 1:50,000
topographic map. Moreover, Sentinel-2 images acquired on May 12,
2018 were used to extract NDVI data. In ArcGIS, DTPP, DLZSP, DCCP
and DMR were calculated by distance function, DV was obtained by
buffer function, and RD was acquired by line density function.
Meanwhile, the natural breaks method was used to convert
continuous data into categorical data. Detailed rules are shown in
Table S3.
Descriptive statistics were implemented in SPSS 25. Maps were
produced with ArcGIS 10.3. Geo-detector software was used to
calculate the contribution of each factor, which could be down-
loaded from http://www.geoddetector.org.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Summary statistics of heavy metal in soil and wheat
As shown in Table 1, the median concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg,
Ni, Pb and Zn were 0.588 mg kg1, 68.2 mg kg1, 29.1 mg kg1,
0.1018 mg kg1, 36.6 mg kg1, 37.95 mg kg1 and 97.5 mg kg1,
respectively. Compared with their background values, the average
growth rate ((Median e Background value)/Background
value  100%) was ranked as follows: Cd (526%) > Hg (239%) > Pb
(77%) > Zn (40%) > Cu (36%) > Ni (27%) > Cr (9%). Their mean EFs
were 7.60, 3.87, 1.97, 1.50, 1.40, 1.31 and 1.10, respectively (Table 2).
The EFs of Cr, Cu and Ni in all soil samples were less than 2, indi-
cating only minimal enrichment. However, 64.52% and 20.97% of
the samples were significantly enriched for Cd and Hg, respectively.
Besides, a moderate enrichment was observed for Pb in nearly one-
third of samples. Overall, the significant increase of Cd, Hg and Pb in
the topsoil relative to background levels deserves our attention.
According to national control standards, the PI values of Cr, Cu,
Hg, Ni, Pb and Zn in all soil samples were below 0.7 (Table 2),
suggesting that they were at uncontaminated levels. However, the
PI value of Cd ranged from 0.51 to 4.15, indicating the presence of
pollution. Specifically, 9.68% of sampled soils were moderately to
severely contaminated with Cd, while 38.71% slightly polluted. This
eventually led to the SPI values higher than 1 in nearly a quarter of
soil samples.
High HM concentrations in soil may pose a high risk of
contamination to crop growth. As can be seen from Table 1, Cd
concentration in wheat grains ranged from 0.018 to 0.246 mg kg1,
with a median value of 0.062 mg kg1, of which 22.58% of the
samples exceeded the maximum allowable concentration (MAC) of
0.1 mg kg1. Although Pb concentration in soil was below the
pollution standard, its concentration in 48.39% of wheat grains
exceeded the mandatory threshold of 0.2 mg kg1 (ranging from 0.1
to 0.7 mg kg1 with a median of 0.2 mg kg1). The highest Pb
concentration in grains was about 3.5 times that of MAC. These may
be attributed to the high availability and bio-accessibility of Pb in
the soil, which can be seen in Table S4. In this study, the average
concentration of soil DTPA-extractable Pb reached 4.92 mg kg1
(ranging from 2.18 to 23.1 mg kg1), and the average bioavailability
was 11.16% (Max. ¼ 20.56%). Moreover, no excess Hg, Cr, Cu, Ni and
Zn were observed in wheat grains in this study. Overall, wheat
cultivation in the area was mainly threatened by soil Pb and Cd
pollution.
3.2. Health risk analysis
3.2.1. Non-carcinogenic risk assessment
The results for non-carcinogenic risks are shown in Table 3 and
Fig. 2. The average HIt for adults and children was 1.22 and 1.53,
respectively. For adults, 80.65% of the samples had HIt values
greater than 1, while for children, the proportion rose to 100%,
meaning that most residents in the area were at non-carcinogenic
risk associated with soil HMs. By contrast, the HIt for children was
higher than that for adults, indicating that children were more
susceptible to adverse effects. The phenomenon has also been
found elsewhere (Chen et al., 2018; Fan and Wang, 2017). The cause
may be special behavior and physiological characteristics of chil-
dren, such as pica, finger sucking, high respiration rate, etc. (Cheng
et al., 2018).
The contribution of different pathways and metals to non-
carcinogenic risk was similar between adults and children, so
only adult health risks were discussed here. From Fig. 2, it can be
found that dietary pathway contributed over 90% of non-

Table 2
Statistical summary of EFs and pollution assessment.

Metal Mean ± Std. Min. Max. Number (and percentage) of samples with different categories

<2 2e5 5e20 20e40 40

EFs Cd 7.60 ± 4.83 3.41 29.09 e 22 (35.48%) 37 (59.68%) 3 (4.84%) e

Cr 1.10 ± 0.06 0.96 1.25 62 (100%) e e e e
Cu 1.40 ± 0.11 1.15 1.74 62 (100%) e e e e
Hg 3.87 ± 1.60 1.30 9.88 5 (8.06%) 44 (70.97%) 13 (20.97%) e e
Ni 1.31 ± 0.10 1.13 1.69 62 (100%) e e e e
Pb 1.97 ± 0.81 1.29 5.76 42 (67.74%) 19 (30.65%) 1 (1.61%) e e
Zn 1.50 ± 0.33 1.11 3.02 58 (93.55%) 4 (6.45%) e e e

Metal Mean ± Std. Min. Max. 0.7 0.7e1 1e2 2e3 >3

PI Cd 1.15 ± 0.69 0.51 4.15 17 (27.42%) 15 (24.19%) 24 (38.71%) 3 (4.84%) 3 (4.84%)

Cr 0.27 ± 0.02 0.23 0.31 62 (100%) e e e e
Cu 0.29 ± 0.02 0.26 0.37 62 (100%) e e e e
Hg 0.03 ± 0.01 0.01 0.08 62 (100%) e e e e
Ni 0.19 ± 0.01 0.17 0.25 62 (100%) e e e e
Pb 0.24 ± 0.09 0.16 0.66 62 (100%) e e e e
Zn 0.34 ± 0.07 0.26 0.64 62 (100%) e e e e
SPI 0.85 ± 0.50 0.40 3.00 29 (46.77%) 19 (30.65%) 11 (17.74%) 2 (3.23%) 1 (1.61%)
6 R. Zhang et al. / Chemosphere 252 (2020) 126591

Table 3
Results of non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risk of different pathways and elements.

Non-carcinogenic hazard index Carcinogenic risk index

Mean value for Adults (Min.Max.) Mean value for Children (Min.Max.) Mean value for Adults (Min.Max.) Mean value for Children (Min.Max.)

Ingestion 5.80E-02 (4.62E-029.08E-02) 2.52E-01 (2.01E-013.35E-02) 4.80E-05 (4.05E-055.92E-05) 5.22E-05 (4.40E-056.43E-05)

Dietary 1.15Eþ00 (6.98E-011.91Eþ00) 1.25Eþ00 (7.58E-012.08Eþ00) 6.47E-04 (3.71E-041.37E-03) 1.76E-04 (1.01E-043.73E-04)
Dermal 7.82E-03 (6.37E-039.47E-03) 2.38E-02 (1.94E-022.89E-02) 5.55E-06 (4.74E-066.80E-06) 4.23E-06 (3.61E-065.18E-06)
Inhalation 5.10E-04 (4.27E-045.91E-04) 5.27E-04 (4.40E-046.10E-04) 1.61E-07 (1.35E-071.84E-07) 4.15E-08 (3.49E-084.74E-08)

Cd 1.76E-01 (4.29E-025.66E-01) 1.95E-01 (4.85E-026.30E-01) 3.35E-04 (8.17E-051.08E-03) 9.25E-05 (2.29E-052.99E-04)

Cr 2.35E-01 (1.54E-015.04E-01) 3.81E-01 (2.99E-016.69E-01) 1.10E-04 (7.17E-052.36E-04) 4.42E-05 (3.46E-057.82E-05)
Cu 2.82E-01 (1.36E-013.78E-01) 3.10E-01 (1.51E-014.15E-01) e e
Hg 2.33E-02 (1.64E-024.40E-02) 2.73E-02 (1.91E-024.95E-02) e e
Ni 2.37E-02 (1.56E-025.01E-02) 3.49E-02 (2.63E-026.29E-02) 2.54E-04 (1.68E-045.35E-04) 9.47E-05 (7.18E-051.69E-06)
Pb 1.73E-01 (4.50E-026.14E-01) 2.46E-01 (9.05E-027.11E-01) 1.61E-06 (4.16E-075.72E-06) 5.71E-07 (2.08E-071.65E-06)
Zn 3.04E-01 (2.10E-014.70E-01) 3.32E-01 (2.30E-015.13E-01) e e

Total 1.22Eþ00 (7.65E-012.01Eþ00) 1.53Eþ00 (1.04Eþ00e2.50Eþ00) 7.00E-04 (4.23E-041.43E-03) 2.32E-04 (1.56E-044.31E-04)

The mean value is in bold and black font, and the maximum and minimum values are normal font.

Fig. 2. Contribution of various exposure pathways and different metals to HIt.

carcinogenic risk for adults, followed by soil ingestion, dermal
contact and inhalation routes. The HIj value via food intake ranged
from 0.698 to 1.91, whereas the mean HIj values for soil ingestion,
dermal contact and inhalation were only 0.058, 0.00782, and
0.00051, respectively. In comparison, HIj of dietary intake route was
2e4 orders of magnitude higher than that of three non-dietary
exposure pathways. Thus, the consumption of home-grown crops
may be an important pathway for HM exposure in the area. This is
consistent with the findings in Kermanshah (Iran), Luanda
(Angola), Huludao and Tianjing (China) (Doabi et al., 2018; Ferreira-
 R. Zhang et al. / Chemosphere 252 (2020) 126591
Baptista and De Miguel, 2005; Ma et al., 2018; Zheng et al., 2010).
Moreover, compared with previous studies in the region, their
estimated non-carcinogenic risks were significantly under-
estimated due to the neglect of dietary intake effects (Fan and
Wang, 2017). Therefore, attention should be paid to the impor-
tance of dietary exposure in future risk management.
In addition, it was also found from Table 3 that the average HIi of
a single HM was as follows: Zn > Cu > Cr > Cd > Pb > Ni > Hg, which
was basically consistent with the research results of Yang et al.
(2019). Zn, Cu and Cr was the largest contributors, accounting for
24.96%, 23.21% and 19.34% of the total non-carcinogenic risk for
adults, respectively (Fig. 2C). Moreover, Ni and Hg had the least risk,
contributing less than 2%. Despite the high accumulation of Cd and
Pb in wheat grains, the contribution of these two metals to the total
risk was only about 15%, respectively. For children, the contribution
of individual metals to HIt was similar to that of adults. Overall,
exposure to a single metal did not pose a significant health risk to
residents of this region. However, the combined effects of multiple
metals cannot be ignored.
3.2.2. Carcinogenic risk assessment
The assessment results of carcinogenic risks are listed in Table 3
and Fig. 3. From Table, the average TCRt was 7.0  104 for adults
and 2.32  104 for children, both higher than the results of Yang
et al. (2019) in the region. The reason may be that in their study,
a large number of samples from non-industrial areas pulled down
the overall risk level. Furthermore, TCRt of adults was 3 times that
of children, which was also different from the situation in Iran’s
Kermanshah agricultural region (Doabi et al., 2018). Higher TCRt for
adults may be associated with longer exposure times and more
wheat intake. In addition, similar to non-carcinogenic risk, the
main exposure route for carcinogenic risk in this study was still
diet, much higher than non-dietary exposure. For each metal,
children’s TCRi were generally within acceptable range (Fig. 3),
indicating no significant carcinogenic risk. However, the mean TCRi
values of Cd and Ni for adults were 3.35  104 and 2.54  104,
accounting for 47.82% and 36.25% to TCRt, respectively. This means
that about 3 per 10000 adults are at risk of cancer caused by Cd or
Ni pollution. As for Cr, the average TCRi for adults was only
1.10  104, slightly above acceptable criterion. Overall, the long-
term health effects for children are not serious at current single
metal level, but adults should pay more attention to the carcino-
genic effects of Cd and Ni.
The HIt and TCRt at each sampling site were mapped, as shown
in Fig. 4. It was found that higher HIt and TCRt were mainly
Fig. 3. Cancinogenic risk of different metals for adults and children.
7
distributed at the intersection of three enterprises, especially near
the LZSP (position A), whereas lower HIt and TCRt were located far
away from them. This reflects to some extent the impact of in-
dustrial activities on human health risks. Moreover, it could also be
found that high HIt or TCRt were mainly scattered in low altitude
areas. Considering the local prevailing wind direction and terrain
features, we inferred that the topographical conditions of the area
may also be an important factor in controlling the distribution of
health risks.
In this study, it should also be noted that although the human
health risks calculated using the total metal concentrations were
not very high in the three non-dietary pathways, the results may
still be overestimated. As can be seen from Table S4, except Pb and
Cd, the DTPA extraction of other metals was very low in this study,
with the average bioavailability less than 5%. Considerable metal
fractions adhere to the soil, with little harm to human health. Thus,
the use of total metal indicators to estimate risk may lead to more
aggressive governance measures.
3.3. Influencing factor analysis
The results of various factors are shown in Table 4. Factors such
as A, OM, NDVI, RD, DV, and ST did not pass the significance test
(a ¼ 0.05), indicating their negligible influence. Meanwhile, slope
(S) also had no significant effect on children’s HIt. In comparison,
the main influencing factors were DLZSP, DTPP, DCCP, E, pH, and
DMR.
In geo-detector analysis, q statistic can characterize the influ-
ence degree of each factor. In this study, the contribution of various
factors for HIt was as follows: DLZSP (0.335e0.342) > DTPP
(0.304e0.308) > DCCP (0.277e0.283) > E (0.255e0.272) > pH
(0.155e0.157) > DMR (0.077e0.081) > S (0.075e0.078) > other
factors (<0.063). However, for TCRt, the influence of elevation
increased significantly: DLZSP (0.340e0.347) > E
(0.329e0.332) > DTPP (0.306e0.310) > DCCP (0.223e0.224) > pH
(0.129e0.132) > S (0.084e0.085) > DMR (0.063e0.065) > other
factors (<0.063). As can be seen from this, the distance factors
associated with industrial activities are the most important. Among
them, DLZSP obtained the highest q, followed by DTPP and DCCP.
This indicated that PbeZn smelting had the greatest impact on the
health of residents. Moreover, E contributed about 26% to HIt and
33% to TCRt, implying an important natural factor. This can be
observed intuitively from Fig. 4. Soil pH was another major natural
factor, contributing about 16% and 13%, respectively. It is well
known that pH affects not only the solubility and mobility of HMs in
soil, but also their availability and toxicity to plants (Bravo et al.,
2017; Lu et al., 2018). Thus, it is not difficult to understand why
pH has an important effect on HIt and TCRt in this study. And be-
sides, soil OM can also affect the activity of HMs through adsorption
and complexation mechanisms (Kwiatkowska-Malina, 2018).
However, no significant effect of OM on HIt or TCRt was found in this
study, which was different from the results of Wang et al. (2018)
and Lu et al. (2018). The reason may be attributed to the differ-
ences in the local soil organic matter composition and weak alka-
line features.
The results of the interaction between any two factors are
shown in Table S5. Generally speaking, interactions can be greater
than, equal to, or less than the sum of the effects of two single
factors (Qiao et al., 2019). The first case is of the greatest concern. In
this study, except DLZSP∩DCCP, DLZSP∩DTPP and DLZSP∩pH, the
interaction of any two factors affecting HIt for Adults was greater
than their sum. Similarly, in addition to the effects of DLZSP∩DCCP
on HIt (for children) and DLZSP∩E on TCRt (for adults and children),
the interaction between other factors was also nonlinearly
enhanced. This suggested that the impact on health risk is not a
8 R. Zhang et al. / Chemosphere 252 (2020) 126591

Fig. 4. Spatial distribution of HIt and TCRt values.

Table 4
The contribution (q statistics) of different factors to HIt and TCRt.

Influencing factors HIt for Adults HIt for Children TCRt for Adults TCRt for Children

DCCP 0.277*** 0.283*** 0.223*** 0.224***

DLZSP 0.342*** 0.335*** 0.347*** 0.340***
DTPP 0.304*** 0.308*** 0.310*** 0.306***
E 0.255*** 0.272*** 0.329*** 0.332***
A 0.040 0.036 0.024 0.023
S 0.078* 0.075 0.085*** 0.084**
pH 0.157*** 0.155*** 0.132*** 0.129***
OM 0.052 0.054 0.063* 0.061
NDVI 0.030 0.028 0.030 0.028
RD 0.040 0.039 0.041 0.040
DMR 0.081** 0.077** 0.065*** 0.063**
DV 0.009 0.010 0.028 0.026
ST 0.025 0.027 0.053 0.055

***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, and * p < 0.05.

simple cumulative result of a single factor, but rather a synergistic
effect of multiple factors.
To highlight the interactive impact of major human activities in
the region, all interactions related to DCCP, DLZSP and DTPP were
compared (Table S5). Results showed that DCCP∩E and DTPP∩E
obtained the highest nonlinear interaction q values, indicating that
the combination of coal chemical (or thermoelectric) production
with altitude factor greatly enhanced the impact of soil HMs on
human health. Although the effect of soil OM on HIt was found to be
small in the above analysis, DLZSP∩OM still yielded a high
nonlinear interaction effect (q ¼ 0.67). In addition, the nonlinear
interaction of DLZSP∩DTPP also contributed more than 70% to TCRt
(q ¼ 0.717 for adults and 0.718 for children), which indicated that
the synergistic effect between PbeZn smelting and thermoelectric
production significantly increased the long-term carcinogenic
impact of soil HMs on the local population. In summary, HIt or TCRt
was influenced by both human and natural factors, but the inter-
action between factors was more important than single factors.
 R. Zhang et al. / Chemosphere 252 (2020) 126591
4. Conclusions
In this study, Cd and Hg were significantly enriched in some soil
samples, Pb was moderately enriched, while other metals were
only slightly enriched. According to the national environmental
control standards, only some soil samples were found to have Cd
concentrations exceeding the mandatory threshold. Although soil
Pb was not contaminated, it still exceeded the limit of 0.2 mg kg1
in nearly half of the wheat samples.
The human health risk assessment revealed that dietary intake
was the main pathway of exposure to HMs. The non-carcinogenic
and carcinogenic risks of single metal were both lower than
acceptable standards, but the comprehensive effects of multiple
metals could not be ignored. High health risks were mainly
distributed at the intersection of enterprises, especially near PbeZn
smelters. The main influencing factors were distance from indus-
trial enterprises, altitude, pH, etc., and their synergistic contribu-
tions were greater.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest to
this work.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Rui Zhang: Writing - original draft, Formal analysis, Data
curation. Tao Chen: Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Yu
Zhang: Formal analysis. Yuhao Hou: Formal analysis. Qingrui
Chang: Resources, Supervision.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities (2452018143) and the National
High Technology Research and Development Program of China
(2013AA102401).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.126591.
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