Urban ground dust pollution in a Pb smelting area: quantifying nonferrous metal smelting and construction contributions to heavy metal accumulation and associated health risks.

Heavy metals in construction site dusts from long-term nonferrous metal smelting areas may be affected by both smelting and construction activities, and when disturbed, lead to human health risks. However, this has not been extensively studied. In this work, 67 dust samples from various surfaces were collected from three apartment building construction sites in a long-term nonferrous metal smelting affected city in China; Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn concentrations were determined. Absolute Principal Component Score-Multiple Linear Regression was employed to identify the contribution of pollution sources, while Monte Carlo simulation was utilized to evaluate health risks. Mean dust concentrations of Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn were 3.79, 61.5, 70.4, 882, 28.6, 235 and 303 mg kg, respectively, with Cd and Pb being the most accumulated metals. Greater Cr and Mn concentrations, and a significant linear correlation between their concentrations at one site suggested that this location may be more affected by dust emission from construction activities than the other two sites. Nonferrous metal smelting contributed 81.9 and 72.5% to Cd and Pb dust accumulation, respectively, while construction activities contributed 58.7 and 44.7% to Cr and Mn dust accumulation, respectively. Human health risk estimates indicated that Pb and Cr contributed the most to noncarcinogenic risk, while Cr contributed the most to carcinogenic risks. Results indicate the significant contribution of construction activities to Cr accumulation in construction site dusts and the resulted contribution of dust Cr to human health risk in the long-term smelting area.