Health Risk Assessment Of Major Pollutants And Heavy Metals In Jinchang City, Gansu Province

ObjectivesTo survey the current situations of pollution in air, drinking water and soil between2007and2010, in Jinchang City, and to assess health risk caused by primary pollutants and heavy metals in multiple environmental media, subsequently according to this, to provide relevant measures for the sake of reducing health-based risk.MethodsBased on the data about daily concentration of major air contaminants, components in drinking water and heavy metals in soil in Jinchang City, the situations of pollution in air, drinking water and soil were described respectively, using statistical indicators. In addition, the multiple-pathway exposure models were provided by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) for health-based risk assessment, which is the major method of studies for main risk sources among the environmental media and exposure media.ResultsIn Jinchang City, from2001to2010, the major air pollutants, including particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, remained unchanged to a large degree, especially appearing seasonal and areal changes. Subsequently, As and Ni were main metal-based pollutants in air while at the same time, leading to the related health risk which followed the decreasing order:As>SO2>PM10>NO2>Ni. Clearly, carcinogenic metal As was the only contaminant for damaging people health, especially adults. Meanwhile, the area around the transportation department of Jinchuan Group CO., LTD compared with other monitoring stations was more dangerous.In drinking water and soil, the main pollutants concluded Cu, Pb, Ni and Cr (Ⅵ) respectively. They induced the health-based risk in water samples, which followed the decreasing order:Cr (VI)>Cu>Ni>Pb, while the risk in soil samples followed the decreasing order:Cr (Ⅵ)> Pb>Ni>Cu. It was of importance that the risk of only carcinogenic metal Cr (Ⅵ) surpassed the carcinogenic hazard index. It mainly damaged people health by means of ingestion absorption, and being more dangerous for adults.ConclusionsThe total environment quality in Jinchang City was acceptable. However, the health-based risk of As in air samples and Cr (Ⅵ) in water and soil samples were higher than the carcinogenic hazard index, while the risk of the non-carcinogenic contaminants was much lower than non-carcinogenic hazard index. More importantly, the carcinogenic risk possessed differences in age, gender and pattern of absorption. Therefore, future efforts should focus on health risks posed by carcinogenic contaminants, and then providing relevant methods and strategies to reduce it.