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Contaminated site–induced health risk using Monte Carlo simulation: evaluation from the brownfield in Beijing, China

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Abstract

The occurrence of contaminated sites has caused serious public health problems, and there are significant health risks. This paper applies Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate the impact of pollutants on human health at a contaminated site in Beijing, China. In this study, a total of 429 soil samples were collected. The exposure routes considered were oral ingestion and skin contact. The log-normal distribution or triangular distribution was adopted to convert exposure parameters into statistical parameters, and the final risk probability was estimated through Monte Carlo simulations. The results show that the 95th percentile risk indexes of As, Ni, Zn, and Hg are 1.22E-1, 5.05E-3, 5.10E-4, and 1.69E-1, respectively, which are all within acceptable levels. The maximum values of As and Hg are 2.15E+0 and 1.04E+0, respectively, with a 5% and 4% probability, respectively, of exceeding the acceptable health risk level. In theory, it is believed that they do not pose a potential threat to human health. Nevertheless, As and Hg in soil are still major pollution sources. The results also show that C (pollutant concentration), AT (mean action time), and ED (exposure duration) are the three parameters with the highest sensitivity to the health risk value. The results of this study can help to improve soil risk control measures and remediation decisions for contaminated sites to reduce the environmental risk in contaminated areas.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 51908452]; and Special Scientific Research Plan of Education Department of Shaanxi Province [grant number 18JK0470].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an, 710055, China

    Ping Guo, Huimin Li, Guangmin Zhang & Wei Tian

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  1. Ping Guo
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  2. Huimin Li
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Contributions

P.G. and H.L. were the principal researchers of this study. They were responsible for all work including the research design and development and data analysis. H.L. was responsible for setting the overall research objectives. G.Z. managed activities to annotate, scrubbed data, and maintained research data. W.T. was responsible for software and supervision. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ping Guo.

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Responsible editor: Lotfi Aleya

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Guo, P., Li, H., Zhang, G. et al. Contaminated site–induced health risk using Monte Carlo simulation: evaluation from the brownfield in Beijing, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 25166–25178 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12429-4

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