The DOI matches its Crossref record; 78 of the 78 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Global soil pollution by toxic metals threatens agriculture and human health
Abstract
Toxic metal pollution is ubiquitous in soils, yet its worldwide distribution is unknown. We analyzed a global database of soil pollution by arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel, and lead at 796,084 sampling points from 1493 regional studies and used machine learning techniques to map areas with exceedance of agricultural and human health thresholds. We reveal a previously unrecognized high-risk, metal-enriched zone in low-latitude Eurasia, which is attributed to influential climatic, topographic, and anthropogenic conditions. This feature can be regarded as a signpost for the Anthropocene era. We show that 14 to 17% of cropland is affected by toxic metal pollution globally and estimate that between 0.9 and 1.4 billion people live in regions of heightened public health and ecological risks.
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Cites
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A Unified Approach to Interpreting Model Predictions
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A Computer Movie Simulating Urban Growth in the Detroit Region
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Environmental and Health Impacts of Air Pollution: A Review
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A survey on feature selection methods
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Trace Elements in Soils and Plants
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Version 4 of the CRU TS monthly high-resolution gridded multivariate climate dataset
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Quantitative assessment of worldwide contamination of air, water and soils by trace metals
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Metadata
- Authors
- Hou, D., Jia, X., Wang, L., McGrath, S. P., Zhu, Y.-G., Hu, Q., Zhao, F.-J., Bank, M. S., O’Connor, D., & Nriagu, J.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2025-04-18
- Volume
- 388
- Issue
- 6744
- Pages
- 316-321
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W4409530112
- Cited by
- 1,016
- References
- 78
- FWCI
- 227.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Hou, D., Jia, X., Wang, L., McGrath, S. P., Zhu, Y.-G., Hu, Q., Zhao, F.-J., Bank, M. S., O’Connor, D., & Nriagu, J. (2025). Global soil pollution by toxic metals threatens agriculture and human health. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adr5214
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