Ecological Risk Assessment of Lead (Pb) after Waste Disposal from Metallurgical Industries

Pb is generally the metal of great concern as well as being phytotoxic. Ecological risk assessment is a process  that evaluates the likelihood that adverse ecological effects may occur or are occurring as a result of exposure to one or more stressors. Metallurgical waste like other waste materials consists not only of Lead Pb, but also consists in large quantities relatively. The ubiquitous distribution and known toxicity of lead pollution in urban environment are posing great concern, in term of human health and environment. According to the importance and criticality of  this issue, a holistic risk-based approach is inevitable at least for environmental health and monitoring (EHM). Reviewing literature, it is found that approximately most of the researches have been carried out in aquatic environments. From the other side, those carried out in terrestrial environment, are non-Pb focusing. Considering the researches pertaining to ERA, however few researches have been carried out in the field of metallurgical industries, none of them has addressed the Pb ERA in a holistic approach.