Source Apportionment of Soil PAH Concentration and Associated Carcinogenic and Mutagenic Potencies by Combined Utilization of PMF and Toxic Assessment: A Case Study in North China

The knowledge of PAH sources in soil plays an important role in making the decision of pollution emission restriction, as well as toxic information. The present study developed a modified receptor model to apportion the contribution of various sources to PAHs and associated toxic. PMF model was selected as the basic source apportionment model to identify sources and apportion their contributions. Toxic assessment models, including carcinogenicity assessment model and mutagenicity assessment model, were then used with PMF to obtain toxic-oriented source contribution. To attain this objective, 16 priority PAHs in the soil around Miyun Reservoir were selected as a case study. The results showed that the dominant source of soil PAHs was wood/biomass combustion (31.02%), followed by vehicular source (27.17%), petroleum source (21.27%) and coal combustion (20.53%). While the highest contributor to carcinogenicity and mutagenicity was a vehicular source, with a proportion of 36.61% and 41.46%, respectively. This study highlights the combined utilization of the source apportionment model and toxic assessment model. The approach was valuable for providing comprehensive source-oriented risk information, and expanding the application of both PMF and toxic assessment.