Human health ambient water quality criteria for 13 heavy metals and health risk assessment in Taihu Lake

doi:10.1007/s11783-021-1475-6

Front. Environ. Sci. Eng.

2022, Vol. 16

Issue (4) : 41 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-021-1475-6

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Human health ambient water quality criteria for 13 heavy metals and health risk assessment in Taihu Lake

Liang Cui¹, Ji Li¹, Xiangyun Gao¹, Biao Tian², Jiawen Zhang¹, Xiaonan Wang¹(

), Zhengtao Liu¹(

)

¹. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing 100012, China
². Faculty of Land and Resources Engineering, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming 650093, China

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Abstract

• The concentrations of 13 heavy metals in Taihu Lake were analyzed.

• Aquatic vegetables intake was first included in deriving human health AWQC.

• The human health AWQC for 13 heavy metals in Taihu Lake were derived.

• Human health risk assessment for 13 heavy metals were conducted in Taihu Lake.

Heavy metals are widely concerning because of their toxicity, persistence, non-degradation and bioaccumulation ability. Human health ambient water quality criteria (AWQC) are specific levels of chemicals that can occur in water without harming human health. At present, most countries do not consider the effects of aquatic vegetables in deriving human health AWQC. Therefore, the intake of aquatic vegetables (Brasenia schreberi) was added to the derivation of human health AWQC and a health risk assessment for 13 heavy metals in Taihu Lake. The human health AWQC (consumption of water, fish and aquatic vegetables) values of 13 heavy metals ranged from 0.04 (Cd) to 710.87 μg/L (Sn), and the intake of B. schreberi had a very significant effect on the human health AWQC for Cu, with a more than 62-fold difference. The hazard quotients of As (2.8), Cd (1.6), Cr (1.4) and Cu (4.86) were higher than the safe level (HQ= 1), indicating that As, Cd, Cr and Cu in Taihu Lake posed a significant health risk. Sensitivity analysis showed that the contribution rate of B. schreberi intake to the human health risk from Cu was 91.6%, and all results indicated that the risk of Cu in B. schreberi to human health should be of particular concern. This study adds the consideration of aquatic vegetable consumption to the traditional method of human health AWQC derivation and risk assessments for the first time, and this approach can promote the development of risk assessments and water quality criteria.

Keywords Heavy metals Human health ambient water quality criteria Taihu Lake Health risk assessment Contribution rate

Corresponding Author(s): Xiaonan Wang,Zhengtao Liu

Issue Date: 15 July 2021

Cite this article:

Liang Cui,Ji Li,Xiangyun Gao, et al. Human health ambient water quality criteria for 13 heavy metals and health risk assessment in Taihu Lake[J]. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng., 2022, 16(4): 41.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/10.1007/s11783-021-1475-6
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fese/EN/Y2022/V16/I4/41

Fig.1 Comparison of 13 heavy metals in water and sediments of Taihu Lake in 2012, 2013 and 2019.

Tab.1 The parameters of AWQC and the comparison between the AWQC developed in this study and USEPA and Chinese surface water quality standards

Fig.2 Human health risk assessment for 13 heavy metals in Taihu Lake. The HQ>1 was displayed in red, indicate had significant health risk, HQ<1 was displayed in green, indicate had not significant health risk.

Tab.2 Human health risk for 13 heavy metals in Taihu Lake

Tab.3 Probability distributions for health risk assessment for 13 heavy metals were estimated by Monte Carlo simulation

Fig.3 Sensitivity analysis of human health risks for 13 heavy metals in Taihu Lake. C_f/C_w/C_v is the concentration of heavy metals in fish/water/vegetable, FI/VI/DI is fish intake/vegetable intake/drinking water intake, BW is bodyweight.

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