ORIGINAL PAPER Carcinogenic risk evaluation for human health risk assessment from soils contaminated with heavy metals D. M. Coca ˆ rt¸a ˘ 1 • S. Neamt¸u 2 • A. M. Res ¸etar Deac 3 Received: 4 February 2016 / Revised: 1 May 2016 / Accepted: 21 May 2016 / Published online: 3 June 2016 Ó Islamic Azad University (IAU) 2016 Abstract Human activities have progressively increased in recent years. Consequently, significant environment dete- rioration resulted. Soils have a particularly varied vulner- ability to heavy metal pollution, especially in the vicinity of industrial areas. Heavy metal contamination of soil may induce risks and hazards to humans and the ecosystem, while toxic metals in soil can severely inhibit the biodegradation of organic contaminants. This paper is focused on human health risk assessment from extremely contaminated soil with heavy metals, mainly with car- cinogenic elements. The study refers to an agricultural area in the vicinity of an old metallurgical processing industrial facility. The contaminants evaluated in the present paper are beryllium (Be), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), nickel (Ni) and lead (Pb). Contamination level is pointed out through laboratory analysis results of soil samples taken from 0–0.2 m, 0.2–0.4 m soil layers and up to 2.1 m soil depth. Some heavy metal concentrations (Cd, Cr and Pb) exceed the intervention thresholds for sensitive areas, as they are stipulated in the national regulation in Romania. The identified average concentration levels of Cd, Cr VI and Pb in the first layer of the investigated land are 23.83, 7.71 and 704.22 mg/kg d.w , respectively. The results show that the potential risk of human health is relevant (higher than the acceptable one after World Health Organization) and a possible solution for the remediation should become a major concern for the investigated area. Keywords Exposure Á Metals Á Risk assessment Á Soil pollution Introduction Metal presence in the environment occurs in both natural and anthropogenic forms. Contaminated ecosystems have impacts on plants, microorganisms, aquatic organisms and life support functions such as immobilization, mineraliza- tion and nitrification, and in this way, the human health and the health of the ecosystem are negatively influenced (Mani and Kumar 2014). Soil, a non-renewable resource, acting as an interface between ground, air and water, facing nowadays a complex pollution generated by human activities, which implied notable contributions to the increase in environmental metal concentration (Granero and Domingo 2002). Events diversity and situations are characteristic of the chemical elements on interaction with different components of soil or environmental elements. Increasing the capacity of metal migration and propensity for sudden chemical com- binations may increase their toxicity affecting the food chain, which invariably ends in man. While usually natural forms are present at relative low concentrations, in recent years a number of anthropogenic sources have an important impact. Industry and the vehicle Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13762-016-1031-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & D. M. Coca ˆrt ¸a ˘ dmcocarta@gmail.com 1 Department of Energy Production and Use, Faculty of Power Engineering, University POLITEHNCA of Bucharest, Splaiul Independent ¸ei no 313, 006042 Bucharest, Romania 2 Minister of Environment, Waters and Forests, Liberta ˘t ¸ii Blv. 12, Sector 5, 040129 Bucharest, Romania 3 National Institute for Research and Development in Environmental Protection, Spl. Independent ¸ei, 294, Sector 6, 060031 Bucharest, Romania 123 Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. (2016) 13:2025–2036 DOI 10.1007/s13762-016-1031-2