Abstract
Regulating soil pH becomes a crucial practice to alleviate cadmium (Cd) contamination. However, little is known about the threshold of soil pH for the safe production of rice at various soil Cd levels. In this paper, the relationships between soil pH values and the contents of available Cd extracted by calcium chloride (CaCl2-Cd) in neutral and acidic soils were studied by mandatory acidification with H+ addition or neutralization with lime at various soil Cd levels. The results showed that the soil CaCl2-Cd contents dramatically decreased with increasing soil pH, and a logarithmic function could well describe the relations of soil CaCl2-Cd contents and soil pH at constant total Cd (CaCl2-Cd model). The Cd contents in rice grain (grain-Cd) in relation to soil CaCl2-Cd was further established through modified rice pot experiments. A model for the prediction of Cd content in rice grains (grain-Cd model) was set up, though which the grain-Cd content could be predicted based on soil pH and total Cd content. 122 data pairs of rice grain-Cd contents obtained at various soil total Cd contents and pH were employed from the literature to verify the reliability of the established model, approximately 95.08% of those data favorably located within the 1:1 line ± 0.5 unit area of the grain-Cd model. Notably, this model can be applied to determine the thresholds of soil pH at a specific Cd pollution level. For instance, to achieve a rice grain-Cd contents matching the Chinese national food safety limit of 0.2 mg kg−1, the soil pH thresholds were estimated to be 5.05, 5.70, and 6.02 at soil Cd contents of 0.3, 0.6, and 0.8 mg kg−1, respectively. In addition, the established model can also be used to estimate the health risk from rice in broad regions with various soil pH values and Cd contents.
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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. All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information fles).
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This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42177012, 41771347) and the National Key R & D Program of China (2018YFD0800600).
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Hanyi Liu: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, formal analysis, writing — original draft, writing — review and editing.Yun Ling: resources, writing — review and editing. Na Liu: investigation. Ying Chen: investigation. Shiqiang Wei: conceptualization, methodology, writing — review and editing, supervision, funding acquisition.
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Liu, H., Ling, Y., Liu, N. et al. The determination of regulating thresholds of soil pH under different cadmium stresses using a predictive model for rice safe production. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 88008–88017 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21751-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21751-4