Impact of Soil Heavy Metal Pollution on Food Safety in China.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26252956.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0135182 and PMC identifier 4529268.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Food safety is a major concern for the Chinese public. This study collected 465 published papers on heavy metal pollution rates (the ratio of the samples exceeding the Grade II limits for Chinese soils, the Soil Environmental Quality Standard-1995) in farmland soil throughout China. The results showed that Cd had the highest pollution rate of 7.75%, followed by Hg, Cu, Ni and Zn, Pb and Cr had the lowest pollution rates at lower than 1%. The total pollution rate in Chinese farmland soil was 10.18%, mainly from Cd, Hg, Cu, and Ni. The human activities of mining and smelting, industry, irrigation by sewage, urban development, and fertilizer application released certain amounts of heavy metals into soil, which resulted in the farmland soil being polluted. Considering the spatial variations of grain production, about 13.86% of grain production was affected due to the heavy metal pollution in farmland soil. These results many provide valuable information for agricultural soil management and protection in China.
Medical subject headings
- Food Contamination
- Food Safety
- Metals, Heavy
- Soil
- Soil Pollutants