Heavy metal pollution and associated health risk assessment of urban dust in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Depending on their particle size and concentration, heavy metals in urban dust pose a health hazard to humans. This study investigated the total concentration, health risk, integrated pollution load index (IPI), and enrichment factor (EF) of various heavy metals in urban dust at different locations in Riyadh City. Surface dust samples were collected from 50 different residential yards in the north, south, west, east, and central corners of the city and analyzed for cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and zinc (Zn). With respect to concentrations heavy metals were in the following order Zn > Cu > Mn > Cr > Ni > Pb > Cd. The EF trends exposed repeated anthropogenic activities were responsible for Mn, Cr, and Ni, while Pb, Zn, and Cu appeared to come from Earth’s crust. Since the heavy metal concentrations were lower than the threshold values, children and adults are exposed to lower health risk in investigated area. Also, there are no pollution of heavy metals in the dust with respect to IPI which is less than the critical limit (<1) with the exception of a sampling location in north side of the city with higher IPI showed unhealthy respiration conditions in particular areas. It was concluded that rapid industrialization and urbanization and their concentrations in dust may cause health problems in near future in north side as well as other sides of Riyadh City.

Sources, Fate, and Detection of Dust-Associated Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS): A Review

“…Several studies have confirmed that road dust contains contaminants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), pesticides, and metals [60,61]. In Saudi Arabia, numerous studies have confirmed the presence of heavy metals in road dust matrix, with a positive correlation with proximity to industrial sites that consume or generate trace metals [11,12,62,63]. However, the presence of PFAS in this dust matrix has not been investigated.…”

“…Dust composition, accumulation, and potential consequences may vary due to weather conditions, traffic density, industrial activity, and proximity to mobile soil. There have been only rare studies about the characterization of falling dust in the Arabian Gulf region, mainly focused on reporting the pollutants within urban road dust, particularly trace metals [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. While these studies represent a great start to the scientific effort to understand the anthropogenic pollutants mixed with street dust, there is still a need to advance our understanding to include emerging contaminants and study the impact of SDSs on baseline pollution levels.…”

Heavy Metal Pollution and Risk Assessment of Surface Dust in the Arid NW China

“…In addition, many HMs accumulate in the human body over long periods of time through accidental ingestion, inhalation, and dermal contact, thus causing irreversible damage to human health [ 22 , 23 , 24 ]. Therefore, USD can serve as a comprehensive indicator of the quality of the urban ecological environment [ 25 , 26 ].…”

“…Oasis cities are built on a large-scale desert background substrate, and their urban development is largely constrained by the distribution characteristics of the water system [ 53 , 54 ]. In addition, oasis cities have a dry climate, sparse vegetation, and exposed surfaces due to a low precipitation and high evaporation, and their urban ecological environment is vulnerable to dust storms under the effects of human activities and atmospheric disturbances [ 26 , 55 ]. Luo et al [ 56 ] quantitatively analyzed the contamination and health risk of HMs in the dust of typical oasis cities from sandstorms and found HM contamination derived from anthropogenic activities; moreover, exposure through ingestion poses the greatest health risk to humans.…”

Pollution and ecological risk assessments for heavy metals in coastal, river, and road-deposited sediments from Apia City in Upolu Island, Samoa

“…Road-deposited sediment (RDS) in the urban environment is severely polluted with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals worldwide due to traffic and industrial activities (Alghamdi et al, 2022;Al-Shidi et al, 2020;Bisht et al, 2022;Yusuf et al, 2022;Xu et al, 2022). Khpalwak et al (2019) reported that the PAHs concentration in urban road dust was higher than that in aerial dust.…”