The integrating eco-health risk assessment and driving factors for risks of heavy metals in soils from an open-pit lead-zinc mine area

Soil heavy metals (HMs) pollution from mining activities poses a significant threat to environmental health and has attracted widespread attention. This study integrated eco-health risk assessment and identified driving factors for risks of HMs in soils at an open-pit lead-zinc mining area. Results indicated that Pb, As and Cu were the major contaminants, with 46.43%, 32.14% and 25.00% of soil samples exhibited moderate to severe pollution levels. Distinct from the pollution level, Cd total contents and effective available contents showed the highest ecological risk, with an average Er value of 180.06 (heavily polluted) and mean RAC value of 82.01(extreme pollution), respectively. Through the probabilistic health risk assessment, As was identified as the key pollutant posing health risks, contributing 98.6% and 97.8% of the Carcinogenic risks and 68.5% and 76.7% of the Non-carcinogenic risks for adults and children, respectively. Cd and As were identified as the primary pollutants posing potential ecological and human health risks. Redundancy and permutation feature importance analysis further demonstrated that electrical conductivity (EC) was a key predictor strongly associated with the ecological risk and health risk. This study distinguished the target priority pollutant between the ecological and health risks and identified the driving factors for risks, providing valuable insights into the pollution control and targeted soil management in mining areas.