Pollution sources and risk assessment of potentially toxic elements in soils of multiple land use types in the arid zone of Northwest China based on Monte Carlo simulation

The concentration of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in soils of different land-use types varies depending on climatic conditions and human. Topsoil samples were collected in Northwest China to investigate PTE pollution and risk in different land uses, and thereby estimate the risk of various pollution sources. The results showed that human activity had an impact on PTE concentrations in the study area across all land use types, with farmland, grassland, woodland, and the gobi at moderate pollution levels and the desert at light pollution levels. Different PTE sources pose different risks depending on the land-use type. Apart from deserts, children are exposed to carcinogenic risk from a variety of sources. A mixed natural and agricultural source was the main source of public health risk in the study area, contributing 38.7% and 39.0% of the non-carcinogenic and 40.7% and 35.5% of the carcinogenic risks, respectively. Monte Carlo simulations showed children were at a higher health risk from PTEs than adult s under all land uses, which ranked in severity as farmland > woodland > grassland > gobi > desert. As and Ni has a higher probability of posing both a non-carcinogenic and a carcinogenic risk to children. Sensitivity analysis showed that the contribution of parameters to the assessment model of PTEs exhibited the following contribution pattern: concentration > average body weight > ingestion rate > other parameters. The PTEs affecting the risk assessment model were not common among different land use types, where the importance distribution pattern of each parameter was basically the same in woodland, grassland, and farmland, and Ni contributed the most to carcinogenic risk. However, Cr contributed the most to the carcinogenic risk in the desert and gobi.