A recent scientific study revealed an alarming fact about heavy metal pollution in Argentina.
Up to 1.4 billion people live in affected areas where there is presence of arsenic, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, nickel, and lead.
This can pose a significant risk to their health and the environment they live in. This was reported in an article published last week in the journal Science.
Heavy Metal Pollution: Alarming Numbers in Argentina
Toxic metal pollution is present in soils worldwide. However, there is a lack of knowledge about their global distribution. That’s why this study aimed to address this issue.
alerta por arsénico
The authors analyzed a global soil pollution database for the mentioned minerals at 796,084 sampling points from 1,493 regional studies.
Additionally, as an innovation, they used artificial intelligence (AI) to map areas exceeding risk thresholds for agricultural safety and human health.
Agricultural Pollution
The data suggests that between 14% and 17% of farmland (about 242 million hectares) worldwide would be affected by toxic metal pollution.
In this context, it is estimated that between 900 and 1,400 million people live in regions with higher environmental and public health risks due to this pollution.
The authors of the study point out that once heavy metals remain in the soil, they persist for decades. These pollutants reduce crop yields, affect biodiversity, and endanger water quality and food security due to bioaccumulation in farm animals.
Despite scientific evidence of their effects and persistence, their global distribution remains poorly understood.
Most Common Heavy Minerals
Among minerals, cadmium is the most widespread heavy metal in the world’s soils, especially in South and East Asia, parts of the Middle East, and Africa.
Nickel, chromium, arsenic, and cobalt also exceed safety thresholds in various regions, largely due to a mix of natural geological sources and human activities such as mining and industry.
Heavy metal pollution.
Furthermore, the results mentioned a “transcontinental corridor enriched in heavy metal pollution” extending across Eurasia at low latitudes, likely reflecting the cumulative effects of ancient mining and the fragmentation or degradation of metal-rich bedrock.
“We hope that the data on global soil pollution by heavy metals presented in this report will serve as a scientific alert for policymakers and farmers to take immediate and necessary measures to better protect the planet’s valuable soil resources,” requested the authors.
