Arsenic accumulation in edible vegetables and health risk reduction by groundwater treatment using an adsorption process

The heavy metals transfer from the soil, where they accumulate, to the edible parts of the plants, and then, their entrance in the foodchaincanrepresentasourceofconcernforhumanhealth.Amongheavymetals,arsenicisoneofthemostwidespreadinthe soil of Lazio (central region of Italy), where the phytoavailable geogenic arsenic enters the food chain, with a dangerous exposition of the local population. In the first part of this work, plants of radish (Raphanus sativus L.) and lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) were grown in protected culture in the experimental farm of CREA-AA, where they were daily treated with different concentrations of sodium arsenate dibasic heptahydrate in order to investigate differences in their arsenic accumulation capacities. In order to confirm the results achieved, in the second part of this study, the arsenic concentration was determined in commercial products obtained from contaminated areas of Lazio, and the potential exposition risk for human health through consumptionofthesewidelyconsumedvegetableswasestimated.Thehighest arsenicconcentrationswerefoundinthesamples oflettuce.ToevaluatethepotentialhealthriskfromconsumptionofL.sativa andR.sativus,theestimateddailyintake(EDI) for adults, adolescents, and elderly was calculated, finding that HRI (health risk index) index value for arsenic was low (< 1) in the case of chronic consumptions for all samples of radishes, and for the lettuces grown in the area of Viterbo. On the contrary, the lettucesobtainedfromTuscania and Tarquiniapresented veryhighconcentrationsofarsenic and a worryingHRI value.Inorder toreducetheriskofAstoxicityinthepeoplethroughconsumptionofthevegetables,theirrigationwatershouldcontainlessthan 0.1mgAsL−1.Forthisreason,theauthorstestedtheapplicationofredmud(RM)toremoveAsfromgroundwaterbeforeusingit for the irrigation of radish and lettuce in greenhouse production.