Sun, Y.; Yang, C. Soil Mercury Pollution of Hainan Island, China: Patterns, Influencing Factors, and Health Risks. Sustainability2024, 16, 3083.
Sun, Y.; Yang, C. Soil Mercury Pollution of Hainan Island, China: Patterns, Influencing Factors, and Health Risks. Sustainability 2024, 16, 3083.
Sun, Y.; Yang, C. Soil Mercury Pollution of Hainan Island, China: Patterns, Influencing Factors, and Health Risks. Sustainability2024, 16, 3083.
Sun, Y.; Yang, C. Soil Mercury Pollution of Hainan Island, China: Patterns, Influencing Factors, and Health Risks. Sustainability 2024, 16, 3083.
Abstract
Due to the growth of tourism, mining and manufacturing, economy of the Hainan Island, southern China has swiftly expanded, but also poses a risk of soil pollution by mercury (Hg) due to the traffic and mineral processing. In order to investigate the characteristics of soil Hg pollution in the Hainan Island and assess the health risk, a total of 239 samples were gathered from five representative regions across the island. A vehicle-mounted potable mercury analyzer was used to measure the atmospheric Hg and soil Hg concentrations in the collected samples. The results indicate that the soil Hg concentration of the five sub-study areas exhibits notable fluctuations, which was found to be influenced by various factors, including wind direction, mining activities, and economic development conditions. The degree of Hg pollution was assessed using both the Single Pollution Index Method and the Geoaccumulation Index Method. The results showed that although nearly half of the sampling points were contaminated, the current soil Hg level does not pose a non-carcinogenic risk to human health.
Keywords
Hainan Island; soil mercury; pollution characteristics; health risk assessment
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Environmental Science
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
