Assessment of Trace Elements in Urban Road Dust of a City in a Border Province Concerning Their Levels, Sources, and Related Health Risks

Most research studies regarding the contamination of urban road dust (RD) focused on mega cities, but little consideration is given for small cities in border areas. The present work investigated the trace elements content in 16 RD samples of particle size < 63 μm at six areas with different anthropogenic activities in Sakaka city, KSA. The trace elements were analyzed using XRF and ICP-MS. Significantly high trace elements concentrations were recorded at small-scale industrial area. Concentrations of trace elements are ranked as Fe > Mn > Pb > Zn > Cr > Cu > Co > As > Se. The contamination evaluation through enrichment factor calculation refers to the existence of an anthropogenic source for certain trace elements, such as Fe, Zn, Mn, Cu, and Pb. The values of contamination factor indicate the contamination of RD samples collected from small-scale industrial area with these trace elements. The highest pollution load index value recorded at this industrial area suggests that it is a highly polluted area. This was confirmed by applying the one-way ANOVA test for the difference analysis between the investigated areas. The correlation between most of the detected trace elements at the small scale-industrial area was lost due to the variation in their industrial sources. The health risk of some detected trace elements was estimated for two groups of populations, namely workers at the small scale-industrial area and residents (adults and children) at residential areas at this city under study. Workers and resident children were more likely affected by arsenic through the ingestion pathway to cancer because of its higher cancer risk values that were more than the acceptable value 1 × 10⁻⁶. Workers and residents (adults and children) are susceptible to noncarcinogenic risks through the ingestion pathway of Fe because of its higher hazard quotient values that are more than one.