Impacts of soil and water pollution on food safety and health risks in China

Abstract

Tieyu. 2015. Impacts of soil and water pollution on food safety and health risks in China. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V.This version available http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/509736/ NERC has developed NORA to enable users to access research outputs wholly or partially funded by NERC. Copyright and other rights for material on this site are retained by the rights owners. Users should read the terms and conditions of use of this material at http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/policies.html#access NOTICE: this is the author's version of a work that was accepted for publication in Environment International. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Environment International, 77. 5-15. 10.1016International, 77. 5-15. 10. /j.envint.2014 www.elsevier.com/ Contact CEH NORA team at noraceh@ceh.ac.ukThe NERC and CEH trademarks and logos ('the Trademarks') are registered trademarks of NERC in the UK and other countries, and may not be used without the prior written consent of the Trademark owner. Impacts of Soil and Water Pollution on Food Safety and Health Risks in China AbstractEnvironmental pollution and food safety are two of the most important issues of our time. Soil and water pollution, in particular, have historically impacted on food safety which represents an important threat to human health. Nowhere has that situation been more complex and challenging than in China, where a combination of pollution and an increasing food safety risk have affected a large part of the population. Water scarcity, pesticide over-application, and chemical pollutants are considered to be the most important factors impacting on food safety in China. Inadequate quantity and quality of surface water resources in China have led to the long-term use of waste-water irrigation to fulfill the water requirements for agricultural production. In some regions this has caused serious agricultural land and food pollution, especially for heavy metals. It is important, therefore, that issues threatening food safety such as combined pesticide residues and heavy metal pollution are addressed to reduce risks to human health. The increasing negative effects on food safety from water and soil pollution have put more people at risk of carcinogenic diseases, potentially contributing to 'cancer villages' which appear to correlate strongly with the main food producing areas. Currently in China, food safety policies are not integrated with soil and water pollution management policies. Here, a comprehensive map of both soil and water pollution threats to food safety in China is presented and integrated policies addressing soil and water pollution for achieving food safety are suggested to provide a holistic approach.

Cadmium (Cd) distribution and contamination in Chinese paddy soils on national scale

“…Rice has high capacity of Cd accumulation due to its growth in paddy fields. Many studies have investigated the Cd contamination in arable land Lu et al 2015;Niu et al 2013;Zhang et al 2015a;Zhang et al 2015b), but Cd contamination in flooded land such as paddy field at the national scale has not yet been investigated.…”

Water Use Efficiency Improvement against a Backdrop of Expanding City Agglomeration in Developing Countries—A Case Study on Industrial and Agricultural Water Use in the Bohai Bay Region of China

“…More seriously, low water quality and insufficient water quantity for a long time would lead to two grave consequences. One is that the water demand for agricultural production can only be met by wastewater irrigation, which poses a great threat to food safety [93,94]. The other is that rural drinking water safety cannot be ensured because underground water is the only drinking water source for many rural areas [92].…”

Investigation of Organic Polymerization in Treating Waste Water by Electrolysis

“…However, with the increasing human activities, a large amount of wastewater is generated and discharged into rivers and sea, causing water pollution [2] that has threatened the survival of human being [3,4]. Therefore, treating wastewater before discharge is required, and to find effective wastewater treatments has become one of important research points in the world [5,6,7].…”