Pollution characteristics, sources, and health risk assessment of human exposure to Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb pollution in urban street dust across China between 2009 and 2018

Highlights

• Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb contents in street dust of 3806 sites throughout China were obtained.
• Traffic and industrial emissions were two main sources of heavy metals in street dust.
• Heavy metal contents and health risks showed spatial distributions with decreasing from southeast to northwest.
• Health risks posed by Pb should merit more attention and priority control.
• Children should be given the priority of protecting against heavy metal pollutionin street dust.

Bobak [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons