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Dataset-based assessment of heavy metal contamination in freshwater fishes and their health risks

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Abstract

The ecological risks and health hazards of heavy metals pollution in Taihu Lake have received widespread concern. This study has developed a species-pollution dataset which includes a large amount of data on heavy metal pollution in Taihu fish. The heavy metal contamination poses a significant threat to human consumption, but no studies have been conducted to assess the risk of exposure to consumption of these fish and to make recommendations for their consumption. In this study, we systematically integrated the relevant data in the dataset, analyzed its contamination level using PI (single pollution index) and MPI (metal pollution index) models, and assessed health hazards of fish consumption using THQ (target hazard quotient) and ILCR (incremental lifetime cancer risk) models. Results showed that the contamination levels of heavy metals in fish varied in a feeding habit and living habit dependent manner. The risk of non-cancer health is the highest from consuming omnivorous fish, then from carnivorous and herbivorous fish. The ILCR model predicted that the long-term Taihu consumption of omnivorous fish may pose a potential carcinogenic risk, especially for children. In all, our study provided a comprehensive understanding on the risk of heavy metals in Taihu. Accordingly, it is recommended that children should try to choose herbivorous fish when consuming fish from Taihu Lake while avoiding long-term consumption of omnivorous fish.

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Data availability

The full datasets used in this analysis are available at http://sdc.iue.ac.cn.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFE0103300), the International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (132C35KYSB20200012, CAS-WX2021SF-0302), the Xiamen Municipal Bureau of Science and Technology Program (3502Z20203079), and the National Basic Science Data Center "Environment Health DataBase” (NO.NBSDC-DB-21).

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Author notes

  1. Xiao-Bo Liu and Congtian Lin contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, People’s Republic of China

    Xiao-Bo Liu, Yang-Yu Wu, Hai-Ning Huang, Li-Ting Zhu & Qiansheng Huang

  2. Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservational Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, People’s Republic of China

    Congtian Lin

  3. National Basic Science Data Center, Beijing, 100190, China

    Congtian Lin & Qiansheng Huang

  4. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330006, People’s Republic of China

    Ru Jiang

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  1. Xiao-Bo Liu
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  2. Congtian Lin
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  3. Yang-Yu Wu
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  4. Hai-Ning Huang
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  5. Li-Ting Zhu
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  6. Ru Jiang
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Contributions

Data collection and writing: Xiao-Bo Liu and Congtian Lin; methodology and analysis: Yang-Yu Wu, Hai-Ning Huang, and Li-Ting Zhu; writing, review and editing: Ru Jiang and Qiansheng Huang. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Qiansheng Huang.

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Liu, XB., Lin, C., Wu, YY. et al. Dataset-based assessment of heavy metal contamination in freshwater fishes and their health risks. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 49985–49997 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-19427-0

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