Abstract
Purpose
Much attention has been paid to anthropogenic activities in the metropolitan zone and associated with their organic pollutants i.e. polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) discharge. This work aims to explore the impact factors, sources, and cancer risks of soil PAHs from the northern Taihu Basin, China, providing worthwhile information for soil remediation and health risk management.
Materials and methods
In this study, soil samples were collected from 43 residential areas in the northern Taihu Basin of the Yangtze River Delta. Determination of 16 PAHs performed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The primary sources of PAHs were discriminated by a positive matrix decomposition (PMF) model and the contributions were quantitatively evaluated. The health risk of PAHs was assessed by the increased lifetime cancer risk (ILCR) model.
Results and discussion
Results showed that the PAH concentration ranged from 87.15 − 947.02 ng g−1, and the compounds were mainly composed of 4–6-ring monomers, accounting for 84.11%. The soil erosion-derived input of PAHs from land to water was determined to be 15.27 kg yr−1. Source identification of PAHs by the PMF model revealed a 50.96% contribution of vehicle emission, 34.07% of coke and coal combustion, and 14.97% of the petroleum-derived source. The correlation analysis indicated that the distance from the nearest trunk road was the key factor influencing PAHs value in soils, followed by coal/coke consumption and the age of the residential area. The changes in TOC and TN contents greatly affected the adsorption of PAHs. The ILCR value was in a range of (1.09–34.00) × 10−6.
Conclusions
The highest concentrations of PAHs in soils were found in the oldest urban district. PAHs in sediments are caused by soil erosion attributing approximately 10% of the total sediments in the northern Taihu Basin. Vehicle emissions were the dominant sources. The total ILCR value ranged from 10–6 to 10–4, reflecting that potential risks would occur occasionally for residents exposed to soil PAHs, with higher cancer risk for adults, and food ingestion was the dominant exposure pathway.
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Funding
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2021YFC3201500), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41673107), and the Major Project of Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education (No. 20KJA170001).
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Sun, T., Zhao, Z., Zhang, Y. et al. Urbanization affects the composition, source, and risk of soil PAHs in lakeside residential area of the Yangtze River Delta, China. J Soils Sediments 23, 3958–3973 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-023-03601-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-023-03601-z