Up to 17 percent of the planet’s agricultural land may be contaminated by toxic heavy metals, a new study has found.
As many as 1.4 billion people reside in areas with soil dangerously polluted with compounds like arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel and lead, according to the study, published in Science.
Toxic heavy metal pollution can come from a range of sources, including both natural and human activities, noted the multinational team of researchers, led by Deyi Hou of China’s Tsinghua University.
Regardless of the source, such pollution threatens both ecosystems and human health, the scientists warned. Many of these persistent metals can jeopardize biodiversity, water quality, crop yields and food safety, via bioaccumulation in farm animals.
“Global soil pollution by toxic metals has been studied for decades,” the scientists stated. “However, quantitative estimates of their impact on soil quality and spatially explicit mapping of soil pollution on a global scale are lacking.”
To assess the global distribution of toxic metals in soil, the researchers compiled data from 1,493 regional studies that included 796,084 samples — and then identified where concentrations surpass safety thresholds.
Using machine learning and modeling techniques, the researchers estimated that between 14 and 17 percent of global cropland — or about 600 million acres — is contaminated by at least one toxic heavy metal.
They found that cadmium was the most widespread culprit, especially in parts of South and East Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Nickel, chromium, arsenic and cobalt also exceeded safety thresholds in many regions, due to a mix of natural geological sources and human activities such as mining and industry, according to the study.
The researchers also identified a transcontinental “metal-enriched corridor” that they described as stretching across low-latitude Eurasia, in line with the cumulative effects of ancient mining, breakdown of metal-rich bedrock and leaching over time.
In total, they estimated that between 900 million and 1.4 billion people are living in high-risk areas.
Going forward, the authors expressed hope that their data would “serve as a scientific alert for policymakers and farmers.”
Equipped with this added information, stakeholders could “take immediate and necessary measures to better protect the world’s precious soil resources,” the researchers added.
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