Theme Summary
While much is known about acute exposure of soil organisms to metals, the effects of long-term sustained metal additions on soil functions are not well understood, and constitute a research priority under Soils and Plants. Assessing and managing the risk associated with potentially toxic trace metals and metalloids in soils requires good scientific knowledge of their behaviour in the terrestrial ecosystem.
This research theme will address the movement of trace elements from agricultural soils into food (for animals or humans). Two research foci have been developed, one dealing with the problems encountered in western Canada where the main problem is the accumulation of Cd from parent materials or fertilizers in the edible seeds of cereal crops, and the other dealing with agricultural soils of eastern Canada where a range of metals or metalloid compounds, with potential for toxicity, have been added to soils by human activity.
The goal of this theme is to provide Canadian regulators and environmental managers with scientific data that may be used for developing scientifically defensible soil quality guidelines that can be applied in site-specific risk assessments. Metals and metalloids being measured in this theme’s research are: Cd, Ni, Co, Cu, Zn, Mn, Se, and As.
The Soils & Plants theme contributions to the E & HHRA framework are:
S1: Strategies to reduce content of potentially harmful trace elements in crops, or conversely, to increase the content of nutritionally beneficial trace elements that may have important effects on human health.
S2: Provide predictive models to allow regulators to use site-specific measurements of trace element bioaccessibility as a tool in decision making and site management.
Theme leaders are: William Hendershot (McGill Univ.) and Andrew Rencz (GSC-NRCan). Research summaries and researcher contact information for the two research projects conducted under this theme may be viewed here.
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