Heavy Metals Concentration In Rice And Vegetables And The Associated Population Health Risk In Batteries Production Area

Heavy metals are one of the important chemical pollutions in agro-products. Heavy metals can adversely affect human health for there is no good mechanism of their excretion. X, a small county in Zhejiang Province, is famous for batteries production. Serious environmental problems correlated with heavy metals arose due to lead acid batteries production. Therefore, in this study, three locations representing typical rural areas in X County were selected, which were battery production area, the suburb of the living quarters, and vegetable production demonstration bases. A total of252samples of rice, vegetable, and soil were collected. Cr, Cd, and Pb pollutions in rice, vegetable, and soil samples in X County were investigated by ICP-MS and the health risk to local population via consumption of rice and vegetables contaminated with the three heavy metals was evaluated by deterministic model and probabilistic model. The main research results were as follows:1. Cr concentrations in all of the rice samples were higher than the maximum allowable concentrations (MAC), Cd and Pb concentrations in20%and93.3%of the samples exceeded the MAC. According to the evaluation criteria of Nemero pollution index, rice samples were classified to be "heavily polluted".2. Cr and Cd concentrations in approximately20%and93.3%of the vegetables samples exceeded the MAC, no sample with elevated levels of Pb was observed in the study area. According to the evaluation criteria of Nemero pollution index, vegetables samples were classified to be "moderately polluted". Pb and Cd were more readily accumulated in leafy vegetables while Cr was more easily absorbed by leguminous vegetables.3. Pb and Cr concentrations in all of the soil samples were within the MAC, while about70.6%of the samples with Cd concentrations surpassed the MAC. According to the evaluation criteria of Nemero pollution index, soil samples in batteries production aera were regarded to be "slightly polluted", whereas samples in suburb of the county and vegetable production demonstration bases were within the warning limit.4. It was found that absorption ability of rice and vegetables for the three metals were all positively correlated to OM, and negatively correlated to soil pH.5. According to the result of exposure assessment, there was potential non-cancer health risk of Cd and Pb to the local population by consumption of rice and vegetables. No health risk of Cr to the population through consumption of rice and vegetables was observed.