Pollution levels and health risk assessment of potential toxic elements in road dust from different functional areas of Plateau city in SW China

The potential toxic element (PTEs) contamination levels, sources, and exposure risk assessment in road dust (RD) from a typical plateau city in southwest China (Kunming) were conducted in this study. The RD was analyzed to determine the PTEs concentrations using ICP-MS. The enrichment factor (EF), geo-accumulation index (Igeo), and multivariate statistical analysis were employed to assess the pollution levels and source identification of PTEs, respectively. In addition, the health risk model was used to assess human health risks. The results showed that the concentrations of PTEs in each functional area could be arranged as follows: CA>TA>IA>RA. TheIgeo of Cu, Zn, and Cd were mostly 1–3, which illustrated moderately to heavily contaminate to these element contaminations in each functional (RA, TA, IA, and CA) based on the EF and PCA analysis that the main sources of heavy metals in RD from Kunming are anthropogenic source (61.8%) and natural source (13.4%). The health risk assessment indicates that chromium has a non-cancer risk for children in RA, whereas no cancer risk was found from the inhalation pathways in this study. © 2021, Saudi Society for Geosciences.