Environmental pollution and food safety are two of the most important issues of our time. Soil and water pollution, in particular, have historically impacted on food safety which represents an important threat to human health. Nowhere has that situation been more complex and challenging than in China, where a combination of pollution and an increasing food safety risk have affected a large part of the population. Water scarcity, pesticide over-application, and chemical pollutants are considered to be the most important factors impacting on food safety in China. Inadequate quantity and quality of surface water resources in China have led to the long-term use of waste-water irrigation to fulfill the water requirements for agricultural production. In some regions this has caused serious agricultural land and food pollution, especially for heavy metals. It is important, therefore, that issues threatening food safety such as combined pesticide residues and heavy metal pollution are addressed to reduce risks to human health. The increasing negative effects on food safety from water and soil pollution have put more people at risk of carcinogenic diseases, potentially contributing to ‘cancer villages’ which appear to correlate strongly with the main food producing areas. Currently in China, food safety policies are not integrated with soil and water pollution management policies. Here, a comprehensive map of both soil and water pollution threats to food safety in China is presented and integrated policies addressing soil and water pollution for achieving food safety are suggested to provide a holistic approach.

Water quality in China is becoming a severe challenge for agriculture and food safety, and it might also impact health of population via agriculture and food. Thus, it is causing widespread concern. Based on extensive literatures review and data mining, current situation of water pollution in China and its effects on food safety were analyzed. The 2nd National Water Resource Survey in China show that the surface water all over the country was under slight pollution and about 60% of groundwater is polluted. Drinking water quality is basically guaranteed in urban area but it is worrisome in rural areas. In addition, China is the largest consumer of fertilizer and pesticide in the world and the amounts of application still show increasing trends. Fertilizers and pesticides are the most important sources of pollution, which affect human health as persistent organic pollutants and environmental endocrine disruptors. Eutrophication of surface water and nitrate pollution of groundwater are serious threats to drinking water safety. Sewage irrigation is becoming a pollution source to China's water and land because of lacking of effective regulations. Although, with the advance in technology and management level, control of nitrogen and phosphorus emissions and reducing water pollution is still a major challenge for China.

Extant studies address water, food, and health security issues considerably separately and within narrow disciplinary confines. This study investigates the links among these three issues from an ecological viewpoint with a multidisciplinary approach in a modified Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework developed by the United Nations. The modified framework includes water, food, and health security considerations as the three constituents of human well-being from an ecological (more specifically, ecosystem services) viewpoint. This study examines the links through published data associated with the Minamata incident, which was a historic and horrific methylmercury-induced water, food, and health poisoning crisis in Japan. The results show that when heavy metal pollution changes one component (marine water) of the provisioning ecosystem services, this change subsequently affects another component (seafood) of the services. This then defines the linkages among water, food, and health security as the three constituents of human well-being within the modified framework. The links can have immediate and far-reaching economic, social, legal, ethical, and justice implications within and across generations. This study provides important evidence for emerging economies that ignore the water–food–health security nexus.

Copper pollutions are typical heavy metal contaminations, and their ability to move up food chains urges comprehensive studies on their effects through various pathways. Currently, four exposure pathways were prescribed as food-borne (FB), water-borne plus clean food (WCB), water–food-borne (WFB) and water-borne (WB). Caenorhabditiselegans was chosen as the model organism, and growth statuses, feeding abilities, the amounts of four antioxidant enzymes, and corresponding recovery effects under non-toxic conditions with food and without food were investigated. Based on analysis results, copper concentrations in exposure were significantly influenced by the presence of food and its uptake by C.elegans. Both exposure and recovery effects depended on exposure concentrations and food conditions. For exposure pathways with food, feeding abilities and growth statuses were generally WFB<WCB⩽FB (p<0.05). The antioxidant activities were up-regulated in the same order. Meanwhile, the exposure pathway without food (WB) caused non-up-regulated antioxidant activities, and had the best growth statuses. For recoveries with food, growth statuses, feeding abilities and the inductions of the antioxidant enzymes were all WB≈WFB<WCB<FB (p<0.05). For recoveries without food, the order of growth statuses remained WB>FB>WCB>WFB (p<0.05), while the antioxidant activities were all inhibited in a concentration–dependent fashion. In conclusion, contaminated food was the primary exposure pathway, and various pathways caused different responses of C.elegans.

Emerging smartphone-based point-of-care tests (POCTs) are cost-effective, precise, and easy to implement in resource-limited areas. Thus, they are considered a potential alternative to conventional diagnostic testing. This review explores food safety and the detection of metal ions in environmental water based on unprecedented smartphone technology. Specifically, we provide an overview of various methods used for target analyte detection (antibiotics, enzymes, mycotoxins, pathogens, pesticides, small molecules, and metal ions), such as colorimetric, fluorescence, microscopic imaging, and electrochemical methods. This paper performs a comprehensive review of smartphone-based POCTs developed in the last three years (2018–2020) and evaluates their relative advantages and limitations. Moreover, we discuss the imperative role of new technology in the progress of POCTs. Sensor materials (metal nanoparticles, carbon dots, quantum dots, organic substrates, etc.) and detection techniques (paper-based, later flow assay, microfluidic platform, etc.) involved in POCTs based on smartphones, and the challenges faced by these techniques, are addressed.

A new biosorbent material from eggshell membrane was synthesized through thiol functionalization, which is based on the reduction of disulfide bonds in eggshell membrane by ammonium thioglycolate. The thiol-functionalized eggshell membrane was characterized, and its application as an adsorbent for removal of Cr(VI), Hg(II), Cu(II), Pb(II), Cd(II), and Ag(I) from aqueous water has been investigated. The experimental results revealed that the adsorption abilities of the thiol-functionalized eggshell membrane toward Cr(VI), Hg(II), Cu(II), Pb(II), Cd(II), and Ag(I) improved 1.6-, 5.5-, 7.7-, 12.4-, 12.7-, and 21.1-fold, respectively, compared with that of the eggshell membrane control. The adsorption mechanism and adsorption performance, including the adsorption capacity and the kinetics of the thiol-functionalized eggshell membrane for the target heavy metals, were investigated. The effects of solution pH, coexisting substances, and natural water matrices were studied. The thiol-functionalized eggshell membrane can be used as column packing to fabricate a column for real wastewater purification.

Lead is a heavy metal with increasing public health concerns on its accumulation in the food chain and environment. Immunoassays for the quantitative measurement of environmental heavy metals offer numerous advantages over other traditional methods. ELISA and chemiluminescent enzyme immunoassay (CLEIA), based on the mAb we generated, were developed for the detection of lead (II). In total, 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC₅₀) of lead (II) were 9.4 ng/mL (ELISA) and 1.4 ng/mL (CLEIA); the limits of detection (LOD) were 0.7 ng/mL (ic-ELISA) and 0.1 ng/mL (ic-CLEIA), respectively. Cross-reactivities of the mAb toward other metal ions were less than 0.943%, indicating that the obtained mAb has high sensitivity and specificity. The recovery rates were 82.1%–108.3% (ic-ELISA) and 80.1%–98.8% (ic-CLEIA), respectively. The developed methods are feasible for the determination of trace lead (II) in various samples with high sensitivity, specificity, fastness, simplicity and accuracy.