Soil Contamination with Heavy Metals and Its Impact on Food Security in China - Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection

GEP > Vol.7 No.5, May 2019

Soil Contamination with Heavy Metals and Its Impact on Food Security in China ()

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Download as PDF (Size: 1058KB) PP. 168-183

DOI: 10.4236/gep.2019.75015 1,897 Downloads 5,803 Views Citations

Author(s)

Zhongchen Hu¹, Jianwu Li^1*, Hailong Wang^1,2*, Zhengqian Ye¹, Xudong Wang¹, Yongfu Li¹, Dan Liu¹, Zhaoliang Song³

Affiliation(s)

¹Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Carbon Cycling in Forest Ecosystems and Carbon Sequestration, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou, China.
²School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan, China.
³Institute of the Surface-Earth System Science Research, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China.

ABSTRACT

With the rapid economic expansion, environmental degradation has become increasingly sever during the past three decades. Soil pollutions associated with toxic organic compounds and heavy metals have been identified in China. The accumulation of heavy metals in soils and its impact on food safety is of increasing concern. It has been reported that more than 20 million ha of land have been contaminated with heavy metals that can result in the potential health risks to human beings and soil ecosystems. This can potentially jeopardize the food security in China. Accumulation of heavy metals in suburb and rural soils is closely related to many anthropogenic activities, such as application of fertilizers and pesticides, irrigation of wastewater, discharge of mining, improper disposal of metal containing wastes, land application of animal manures, sewage sludge and coal combustion residues. Arable crops and vegetables in suburb and rural can take up heavy metals from contaminated soils, which is one of the main pathways of introducing heavy metals to human food chain. Events related to soil and vegetable contamination, food safety and human health risks, e.g., rice and vegetables with elevated concentrations of cadmium, are often reported in the media in recent years. The Chinese government has recently developed a number of new policies for prevention of soils from further soil contamination, and remediation of contaminated soils. This presentation will provide a comprehensive review on heavy metal pollution in soils and its impacts on food security in China, and also summarize some new technologies for remediation of soils contaminated with heavy metals.

KEYWORDS

Soil, Heavy Metals, Food Security, China

Share and Cite:

Hu, Z. , Li, J. , Wang, H. , Ye, Z. , Wang, X. , Li, Y. , Liu, D. and Song, Z. (2019) Soil Contamination with Heavy Metals and Its Impact on Food Security in China. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 7, 168-183. doi: 10.4236/gep.2019.75015.

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