Environmental Health and Ecological Risk Assessment of Soil Heavy Metal Pollution in the Coastal Cities of Estuarine Bay—A Case Study of Hangzhou Bay, China

Abstract

Shanghai is the major city on the north shore of Hangzhou Bay, and the administrative regions adjacent to Hangzhou Bay are the Jinshan district, Fengxian district, and Pudong new area (Nanhui district), which are the main intersection areas of manufacturing, transportation, and agriculture in Shanghai. In this paper, we collected a total of 75 topsoil samples from six different functional areas (agricultural areas (19), roadside areas (10), industrial areas (19), residential areas (14), education areas (6), and woodland areas (7)) in these three administrative regions, and the presence of 10 heavy metals (manganese(Mn), zinc(Zn), chromium(Cr), nickel(Ni), lead(Pb), cobalt(Co), cadmium(Cd), mercury(Hg), copper(Cu), and arsenic(As)) was investigated in each sample. The Nemerow pollution index (NPI), pollution load index (PLI), and potential ecological risk index (PERI) were calculated to assess the soil pollution levels. The hazard quotient (HQ) and carcinogenic risk (CR) assessment models were used to assess the human health risks posed by the concentrations of the heavy metals. The CR and HQ for adults and children in different functional areas descended in the following order: industrial areas > roadside areas > woodland areas > residential areas > education areas > agricultural areas. The HQ of Mn for children in industrial areas was higher than 1, and the risk was within the acceptable range.