Soil heavy metal pollution of industrial legacies in China and health risk assessment

Rapid urbanization in China has brought about large-scale factory relocation. Severe environmental ecological and human health risks are caused by a large number of contaminated legacies left in the city. To comprehensively review the pollution and assess the health risk of industrial legacies in China, a total of 625 polluted industrial legacies were compiled by document retrieval. Legacies are mainly located in the southwest of China, the North China Plain, Yangtze River Basin, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta with a mean operation time of 35 years, and legacies of chemical manufacturing take the biggest proportion of all sites. Health risk assessments considering the uncertainty of exposure and toxic factors reveal that the soil heavy metal pollution in China is serious, with Pb, Cd, Zn, Ni, and As as dominant pollutants. Legacies of chemical manufacturing, ferrous metal processing, non-ferrous metal processing, and mines should be priority controlled for their large number and serious risks. Children are the most vulnerable people with more serious non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks, while males are slightly surpassed by females. Insights for better risk management of legacies are provided based on the comprehensive assessment of pollution and human health risk in this study.