Health Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals in Shanghai Urban Parks

Heavy metals, a kind of persistent toxic substance(PTS), were taken for the study in this paper. Dust samples we recollected in Shanghai urban parks. The concentrations of mean metals in dust samples were in the order Zn >; Pb >; Cu, where Pb shows the greatest coefficient of variation. Human health risk was evaluated in Shanghai urban parks. The pathway of direct ingestion is dominating for children exposed to PTS, which is more than 98% of the overall exposure dose. Through statistical analysis of arcgis module, the corresponding distributions of Cu, Pb and Zn show an increasing trend towards inner ring road. By contrast with roadside dust samples, collected near the upper reaches of the Huang pu River, the main sources of these elements in Shanghai urban parks were mainly derived from human activities, especially for traffic sources.