Assessment of Metal Pollution, Its Potential Health Risks, and Origin in Different Land Use Types in Zhuhai City, China

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the current status of metal concentrations in soil from Zhuhai City. We detected the concentrations of eight metal elements in 67 topsoil samples collected from three typical land use types (water source land, n = 27; industrial land, n = 25; and farmland, n = 15) in Zhuhai. Multivariate geostatistical analyses indicated that the concentrations of Cu, Zn, and Cd may have originated from anthropogenic sources, whereas Pb and As mostly originated from natural sources. Additionally, Cr, Ni, and Hg may have come from mixed sources. The pollution index and the potential ecological risk were used to identify the general contamination characteristics of soil metals. The soil samples from industrial land were more polluted (60% of soil samples in industrial land were unpolluted to moderately polluted, and 40% were moderately polluted) and posed greater risk (28.6% of industrial soil samples were very high risk, and 71.4% were considerable risk) than samples from water source land and farmland. On the whole, the health risks posed by soil metals were acceptable or close to tolerable, and Cd was the most important pollutant contributing to human health risks. Comparatively speaking, children were the most vulnerable population to the non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks of contaminated soils from industrial land. Our results provide fundamental information for improving soil environmental management and metal pollution prevention and control in Zhuhai City.