Early warning on risk development in compound lead and cadmium contaminated sites.

Based on the transformation among metal fractions defined by the Tessier sequential extraction procedure and integrated risk information assessed by delayed geochemical hazard (DGH) methodology, including development paths and their burst probabilities, trigger conditions, and the contribution of each metal to risk development, an approach was proposed to provide an early warning on risk development in metal compound-contaminated sites and tested in a lead and cadmium-contaminated site. Risk assessment indicated that the site was at a high to extremely high ecological risk. DGH analysis revealed that the transformation from the fraction bound to carbonate and organic matter to the exchangeable fraction was dominant in the development of either single or combined lead and cadmium risk, which was triggered by soil acidification and the continuous decline of soil organic matter; risk development might have occurred in 6.52-80.4% of the case site with burst probabilities of 6.52-80.4%, 8.70-39.1% and 8.70-80.4% for lead risk, cadmium risk and combined lead-cadmium risk, respectively; with the dominant role of lead, the two metals overall accelerated the development of their compound risk by changing each other's DGH paths. The proposed DGH-based approach is promising for early warning on risk development in compound contaminated sites.