Ecological and human health risk assessment of chromite ore processing residue (COPR) dumpsites in Northern India: A multi–pathways based probabilistic risk approach

Pollution Risk Prediction for Cadmium in Soil from an Abandoned Mine Based on Random Forest Model

“…The mean error was less than 1%, indicating a high degree of coherence between the two data sets [ 29 ], and the median error was below 10% ( Table 2 ), indicating a strong similarity between the two data sets. Results from all three indicators show that the random forest model has an obvious recognition capability and high accuracy for predicting toxic metal(loid)s [ 30 , 31 ]. When data cannot normally be obtained due to environmental and geological factors in the regional soil, the random forest model can still achieve high predictive precision [ 32 , 33 ].…”

Groundwater Quality and Health: Making the Invisible Visible

“…Because of the invisible nature of most contaminants in groundwater, the linkage between groundwater quality and health is not as straightforward as the surface matrix, and consequently, less attention has been paid to the health effects of groundwater quality than those of the surface matrix. Previous studies about the health effects of groundwater contaminants are mostly related to the sites with conventional contaminants and known boundaries, − and guidelines have been made in many countries to evaluate the health risk of site contaminant exposure. − For the regional groundwater contamination, case studies of health risk assessment have been reported, and the knowledge remains unsystematic because of the unclear boundaries and undefined exposure pathways. In general, the substances from groundwater can affect human and animal health either directly via groundwater exploitation (i.e., artificial discharge of groundwater) − or indirectly through contaminating surface water and soil/sediment via natural discharge of groundwater (Figure ).…”

“…The second challenge is the ambiguous exposure pathways of groundwater which link the critical substances in groundwater and the receptors in surface environments (i.e., human, animal, ecological environments). Exposure pathways can be defined in the contaminated sites with known groundwater flow regimes − but remain ambiguous for complicated sites and large scale areas in which groundwater flow cannot be clearly identified. Exposure pathways can be resolved for the critical substances with known hydrobiogeochemistry (i.e., conventional contaminants) , but are unclear for those (i.e., emerging contaminants and new pathogens) whose hydrobiogeochemistry is still poorly understood.…”

“…Exposure pathways can be defined in the contaminated sites with known groundwater flow regimes − but remain ambiguous for complicated sites and large scale areas in which groundwater flow cannot be clearly identified. Exposure pathways can be resolved for the critical substances with known hydrobiogeochemistry (i.e., conventional contaminants) , but are unclear for those (i.e., emerging contaminants and new pathogens) whose hydrobiogeochemistry is still poorly understood. The third challenge is the unavailable methodology and framework for health assessment of exposure to contaminated groundwater.…”

“…Methodologies for quantifying the toxic effects of the critical substances are mainly limited to conventional contaminants and are not available for most emerging contaminants and new pathogens. A general framework is still lacking for comprehensively assessing the health effects of exposure to groundwater substances, though the assessment has been conducted in some case studies. ,, …”