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Health risk assessment of heavy metals in soils and screening of accumulating plants around the Wanshan mercury mine in Northeast Guizhou Province, China

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Abstract

The Wanshan mercury mine, which is an abandoned mine located in northeastern Guizhou Province in Southwest China, has introduced serious Hg pollution to the local ecosystem resulting from previous mining and smelting activities. However, it is not clear to date whether soil pollution has actually improved after treatment by related departments. Therefore, the present study investigates the vegetation community and heavy metal contents of the soil and plants in the Wanshan mercury mining area. The results showed that most of Hg, Cd, As, Cu, and Zn contents in soil samples were higher than those of Soil Environment Quality Risk Control Standard for Soil Contamination of Agricultural Land in China (GB15618-2018). The observed plant species mainly consisted of Compositae, followed by Leguminosae. Unfortunately, this investigation found that heavy metal concentrations in these plants were not extremely high and far below the standard of hyperaccumulator. Despite all this, the maximum values of bioaccumulation factor for Pb, Cd, Hg, As, Cu and Zn were Serissa japonica (Thunb.) Thunb., Rhus chinensis Mill., Potentilla sibbaldii Haller f., Erigeron canadensis L., Clerodendrum bungei var. bungei. and Rhus chinensis Mill., respectively. Regardless of the carcinogenic or noncarcinogenic risk index, the potential risk to urban children is higher. Our results suggest that heavy metal pollution was indeed relieved since their contents in soil significantly decreased in comparison with those reported in other previous studies. This finding provides a reference for the long-term treatment of heavy metal pollution in the local environment and other areas employing analogous environmental protection measures.

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Data availability

The present study data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the Guizhou Science and Technology Support Plan Project (No. [2020] 1Y178, [2019]1217, [2017] 1176); the basic condition platform construction project of the Guizhou Science and Technology Department (No. [2019] 5701); and the Department of Education of Guizhou Province (No. KY[2021]302).

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  1. Xiangchen Tang and Xianliang Wu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Guizhou Provincial Key Laboratory for Environment, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang, 550001, Guizhou, China

    Xiangchen Tang, Pinhua Xia, Tao Lin & Xianfei Huang

  2. Guizhou Institute of Biology, Guiyang, 550009, Guizhou, China

    Xianliang Wu & Zhenming Zhang

  3. Guizhou Botanical Garden, Guizhou Academy of Sciences, Guiyang, 550004, Guizhou, China

    Jiachun Zhang

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  1. Xiangchen Tang
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Contributions

X.T., X.W., and X.H. designed the research; X.T., X.W., X.H., and Z.Z. wrote the paper and performed the experiments; and P.X., T.L., and J. Z. performed the data analysis.

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Correspondence to Xianfei Huang or Zhenming Zhang.

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Tang, X., Wu, X., Xia, P. et al. Health risk assessment of heavy metals in soils and screening of accumulating plants around the Wanshan mercury mine in Northeast Guizhou Province, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 48837–48850 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14145-5

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