HEALTH RISK ASSESSMENT OF HEAVY METALS IN ROAD DUSTS TO THE POPULATION IN URBAN PARKS AND SQUARES: A CASE STUDY FROM CHINA

Environmental risk of heavy metals in public leisure places is becoming a serious issue in developing countries such as China. The aim of this study was to evaluate the risk to people's health based on the content of heavy metals in different particle size dusts from public. The road dust samples of 7 parks and 5 squares were collected in Changchun, China, and the elements of Pb, Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn, and Cd were selected. The mean concentrations of Pb, Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn and Cd in the investigated dusts from urban parks and squares are 70.12, 63.23, 44.40, 23.96, 169.12 and 0.299 mg kg 1, respectively. According to calculated Hazard Quotient (HQ), for non-cancer effects, the ingestion pathway appears to be the major route of exposure to the road dust that results in a higher risk for heavy metals, followed by dermal contact and inhalation pathways, and the total exposure amounts for children were 12.3 times higher than adults. But there were no significant differences for health risks among the different particle size fractions. Hazard Index (HI) values for all studied elements were lower than the safe limit of 1 and this result suggested that none of the population would likely to cause the non carcinogenic health risk. Besides that, the levels of carcinogenic risk (CR) associated with exposure to Cd, Cr, and Ni in road dusts were all below the threshold values (10(-6)-10(-4)), indicating no carcinogenic risk from these elements for children and adults.