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Evaluation of trace elements pollution in deposited dust on residential areas and agricultural lands around Pb/Zn mineral areas using modified pollution indices

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Abstract

Dust deposited on residential and agricultural lands can have serious consequences for the ecosystem when toxic trace elements are present. This study aimed to assess the ecological risk of the trace elements found in the deposited dust around the Mehdi Abad Pb/Zn mine, Yazd, Iran, using several modified pollution indices. The dust samples were collected by the grid method and a Marble Dust Collector (MDCO) sampler to evaluate the concentration of thirty trace elements: nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), barium (Ba), beryllium (Be), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), dysprosium (Dy), lanthanum (La), lithium (Li), niobium (Nb), tin (Sn), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), rubidium (Rb), Ferrum (Fe), sulfur (S), selenium (Se), strontium (Sr), tantalum (Ta), terbium (Tb), zirconium (Zr), tellurium (Te), thorium (Th), titanium (Ti), uranium (U), vanadium (V), yttrium (Y), ytterbium (Yb), thulium (Tm), and cobalt (Co). This study employed multivariate statistical techniques, including Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) and the IDW interpolation technique, as well as modified pollution indices such as Enrichment Factor (EF), Modified Pollution Index (MPI), Modified Potential Ecological Risk Index (MRI), and Modified Hazard Quotient (mHQ). All the statistical data analyses were performed via SPSS Statistics, version 22.00. The HCA results showed that all of these trace elements, except Fe, form a group and had similar behavior. The average levels of all elements in the dust samples except for Cr, S, Sr, Ta, Tb, and Te exceeded the background value. The results confirmed that both anthropogenic activities and natural factors were responsible for the trace elements found in the dust. The average EF value for Pb (43.26) indicated its extremely high enrichment in the study area. The MPI, mHQ, and MRI results showed that 33%, 100%, and 33.33% of the dust samples were in the heavily polluted, extreme severity, and high risk categories, respectively. The IDW analysis results revealed that the highest value of the MRI and mHQ indices was in agricultural lands and residential areas; the predominant wind direction also played a role in transferring the elements from the mine to these areas. In general, the results indicated that mining activities increased the ecological risk in Mehdi Abad due to the presence of trace elements, especially Pb.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank office of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) of Mehdi Abad Pb/Zn mine for support of this research project.

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All sources of this study were supported by the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental, School of Natural Resources and Desert Studies, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

    Saeed Shojaee Barjoee & Mohammad Reza Elmi

  2. Department of Environmental, School of Natural Resources, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

    Saeed Zarei Mahmoud Abadi

  3. Department of Nature Engineering, School of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Ardakan University, Yazd, Iran

    Vahid Talebi Varaoon

  4. Department of Environmental Management and Planning, Graduate Faculty of Environment, Tehran University, Tehran, Iran

    Mojtaba Nikbakht

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  1. Saeed Shojaee Barjoee
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Contributions

SSB work concept, conducted the data collection, ecological risk calculations, preparation of inverse distance weighting maps of mHQ and MRI, manuscript writing, proofreading, results and discussion, tables and figures. SZMA, MRE, VTV and MN Analysis (ICP-MS), ecological risk calculations, results and discussion, implementation of HCA, tables, figures, proofreading and references. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Saeed Shojaee Barjoee.

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Barjoee, S.S., Abadi, S.Z.M., Elmi, M.R. et al. Evaluation of trace elements pollution in deposited dust on residential areas and agricultural lands around Pb/Zn mineral areas using modified pollution indices. J Environ Health Sci Engineer 19, 753–769 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40201-021-00643-8

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