Evaluating soil metallic pollution and consequent human health hazards in the vicinity of an industrialized zone, case study of Mubarakeh steel complex, Iran

Background: being established in 1988 in the vicinity of isfahan city, mubarakeh steel complex has imposed adverseenvironmental and health effects within the area. the study area is covered by lots of farms through which major cropslike wheat and rice are provided.methods: considering the imposed pollution load of the complex, the current study has monitored the concentration ofmetals fe, al, cd, cr, ni, pb, cu, zn,mn, co,mo, as in 14 soil samples within the study area. furthermore, human healthhazards of mentioned metals due to consumption of domestic rice and wheat have also been evaluated through differentscenarios. in order to evaluate the mobility of metals in soil samples the sequential chemical analysis is performed.results: regarding the accumulation of metals in loose phases the order of metals bioavailability risk level is estimated tobe as follows:co > cd > mo > ba > as > pb > mn > cu > v > zn > cr > nidiscussion: an index approach is also considered to evaluate the severity of metal contamination. regarding geochemicalaccumulation index, only cadmium is detected to be in a moderately contaminated status while other metals declare anunpolluted condition. index of pollution pays more attention to mobility potential of metals and accordingly detectsmetals co, mn, as, pb, cd, ba and mo to be in a moderately contaminated level. on the other hand, enrichment factordeclares all toxic metals except for co, ba and v to be enriched.conclusions: considering human health hazard assessment, except for fe, ba, cu and zn, all metals intakes in differentscenarios are considered as hazardous while their cdi values are much more than the respective oral reference dose