When agricultural soils are contaminated by strontium-90 ( 90 Sr) and cesium-137 ( 137 Cs), remediation is needed to ensure effective decontamination and food safety. This study developed an integrated phytoremediation framework for 90 Sr- and 137 Cs-contaminated soils in Southern China, combining field trials with a novel kinetic model that accounts for soil-to-plant transfer, species-specific sensitivity distributions, and internal human dosimetry. Field trials were conducted to generate sufficient soil-plant transfer data, which were used to parameterize and validate the kinetic model describing radionuclide migration within the soil-plant-human system. Our work is among the first to couple field-based phytoextraction data with organ-specific dose modeling. The framework enables predictive evaluation of radionuclide transfer and dose, supporting optimized crop rotations in radiologically-impacted farmland. Field trials revealed significant soil contamination, with 90 Sr activity concentrations ranging from 5.50 x 10 2 to 6.59 x 10 2 Bq & sdot;kg - 1 , and 137 Cs levels from 3.91 x 10 2 to 6.16 x 10 2 Bq & sdot;kg -1 . The study found that hyperaccumulating leafy vegetables, such as cabbage and spinach, exhibited high transfer factors for 90 Sr (up to 1.47) and 137 Cs (up to 3.90), making them effective for initial soil decontamination. Low-uptake crops, such as corn and wheat, were identified as suitable for long-term sustainable cultivation, as they exhibit minimal radionuclide transfer to edible parts, thereby reducing foodborne health risks. Predicted internal effective doses from crop consumption were calculated for male and female populations, with reductions being up to 70 % in model-predicted internal radiation exposure under optimized crop selection.

Existing approaches for assessing soil heavy metal(oid)s (HMs) accumulation at the regional scale remain limited in their ability to consistently link spatiotemporal input and output processes and to accurately quantify fluxes without relying on extensive environmental monitoring data. To address these limitations, we developed an integrated modeling framework that couples a bottom-up multi-source emission inventory, the AERMOD atmospheric dispersion model, and a HYDRUS-based water-solute transport module, further extended with established empirical approaches to quantify output processes, enabling long-term, spatially explicit simulation of soil HMs dynamics, with a machine learning module incorporated to calibrate process-derived net HMs fluxes. The framework was applied to an industrial agglomeration located in eastern coastal Zhejiang province, China. Results indicated that, with rapid industrialization and urbanization, atmospheric deposition inputs have steadily increased, whereas agricultural inputs have declined, with high-deposition zones concentrated within 10 km away from the point source. Simulation of output processes revealed that leaching and soil erosion were the dominant pathways of HMs loss, while runoff fluxes exhibited a gradual increase in response to growing impervious surface. A pronounced decline in soil environmental carrying capacity was predicted after 50 years, with overload zones expanding substantially, particularly for As (30.82 %), Cu (31.04 %), Cd (19.96 %), Pb (28.48 %) and Hg (32.66 %). Risks were dominated by As and Cu in forestland due to their high ecotoxicity, while the carrying capacity declined sharply in cultivated and residential land owing to receptor sensitivity and intensive human activities. This framework provides a robust tool for tracing emission sources, elucidating transport and accumulation dynamics, and supporting long-term risk zoning and early warning for regional environmental management.

Soil environmental capacity (SEC), a key indicator of the soil's ability to sequester pollutants and maintain ecosystem services, is vital for effective urban environmental management. However, traditional methods for evaluating SEC often overlook the complex spatial heterogeneity of environmental drivers. This study introduced an integrated approach combining eXtreme Gradient Boosting, SHapley Additive exPlanations, and geographically weighted regression (GWR) to compare the spatiotemporal dynamics and key drivers of SEC in Zhenhai and Tianjin, China, representing distinct landscape and socioeconomic contexts. Results revealed steep SEC gradients in Zhenhai, driven by industrial concentration, and a more uniform distribution in Tianjin, influenced by urbanization. From 1997 to 2021, Tianjin's SEC remained stable, whereas Zhenhai experienced a sharp decline after 2013. The analysis identified land use and cover change (LUCC) as key drivers in Zhenhai, whereas gross domestic product dominated in Tianjin. The GWR results revealed spatial heterogeneity in SEC drivers, with LUCC dominating Zhenhai's urban and industrial zones, while in Tianjin, economic fluctuations had contrasting impacts, reflecting regional differences in economic activities and pollutant dispersion. These findings highlighted the need for tailored soil management strategies to mitigate pollution risks in rapidly urbanizing areas.

Accurate control of soil heavy-metal (HM) contamination requires source identification that remains reliable under spatial heterogeneity. This study integrates fuzzy classification with positive matrix factorization (FC-PMF) to visualize continuous membership fields and quantify probabilistic source contributions. Cadmium (Cd) was apportioned primarily to agricultural inputs (66.3%) with a secondary atmospheric component (33.7%); membership surfaces resolved fertilizer-linked Cd hotspots in long-term intensively cultivated fields where Cd exceeded 0.16 mg kg-1. The Impact Index of Comprehensive soil Quality (IICQ) classified 75.0%, 19.8%, and 5.2% of units as uncontaminated, slightly contaminated, and moderately contaminated, respectively. For human health risk, a Cd hazard index (HICd)-aggregating ingestion, dermal, and inhalation pathways as a comparative indicator-co-located with agricultural memberships, with ingestion contributing most. Joint IICQ-HICd overlays on the membership canvas highlighted risk clusters where multiple drivers co-act, particularly fertilizer-linked zones. The framework explicitly mitigates uncertainties arising from overlapping source profiles and localized hotspots, which can blur signals in PMF-only or thresholded maps, and it provides a consistent canvas to overlay ecological and health metrics for risk zoning. By coupling chemically interpretable factors with graded memberships, FC-PMF yields policy-ready maps that sharpen hotspot detection, clarify process co-occurrence, and support targeted remediation in intensively managed chernozem agroecosystems.

When agricultural soils are co-contaminated by strontium-90 (90Sr) and cesium-137 (137Cs), the remediation strategies must simultaneously ensure effective decontamination and food safety. This study develops an integrated phytoremediation framework for 90Sr- and 137Cs-contaminated soils in Southern China, combining field trials with a novel kinetic model that accounts for soil-to-plant transfer, species-specific sensitivity distributions, and internal human dosimetry. Extensive field trials were conducted to generate soil–plant transfer data, which were used to parameterize and validate the kinetic model describing radionuclide migration within the soil–plant–human system. Our work is among the first to couple field-based phytoextraction data with organ-specific dose modeling. The framework enables predictive evaluation of radionuclide transfer and dose, supporting optimized crop rotations in radiologically impacted farmland. Field trials revealed significant soil contamination, with 90Sr activity concentrations ranging from 5.50 × 102 to 6.59 × 102 Bq·kg–1, and 137Cs levels from 3.91 × 102 to 6.16 × 102 Bq·kg-1. The study found that hyperaccumulating leafy vegetables, such as cabbage and spinach, exhibited high transfer factors for 90Sr (up to 1.47) and 137Cs (up to 3.90 × 10-2 kg–1), making them effective for initial soil decontamination. Low-uptake crops, such as corn and wheat, were identified as suitable for long-term sustainable cultivation, as they exhibit minimal radionuclide transfer to edible parts, thereby reducing foodborne health risks. Predicted internal effective doses from crop consumption were calculated for male and female populations, with reductions of up to 70% in model-predicted internal radiation exposure under optimized crop selection.

Existing models for predicting heavy metal input fluxes to soil by hydrological pathways often suffer from limitations in spatiotemporal resolution and the event input flux from flooding, particularly in capturing complex hydrological dynamics and accurately linking pollutant sources to sinks. To overcome these challenges, we developed a novel integrative model that combines emission inventories, hydrological transport mechanisms, and machine learning (ML) correction to quantify cadmium (Cd) input fluxes through irrigation and flood pathways at a regional scale. The model integrates: (1) an enhanced SWAT model coupled with advection-diffusion equations for high-resolution Cd transport simulation in river networks, (2) MIKE FLOOD for estimating Cd input during flood events, and (3) an XGBoost-based ML correction module to align simulated fluxes with empirical soil Cd accumulation data. Applied to Hengnan County, the model estimates annual Cd input fluxes of 0.91 mg m-2 via irrigation and 4.63-7.95 mg m-2 during flood events. Sediment plays a crucial role in Cd transport, contributing 16.82 % and 32.17 % of the total flux through irrigation and flooding pathways, respectively. The corrected cadmium input flux via hydrological pathways averages 2.71 mg m-2·a-1, ranging from 0.01 mg m-2·a-1 to 109.72 mg m-2·a-1, with 28.08 % of farmland affected by combined inputs from both irrigation and flood inundation. Model validation demonstrates high predictive accuracy (R2 = 0.89 for ML correction). This integrated approach provides a robust, scalable framework for assessing cadmium fluxes, offering valuable insights for regional soil cadmium risk management and pollution control strategies.

Traditional health risk assessment (HRA) generally overlooks bioaccessibility, potentially leading to overestimated risk estimates. In this study, we systematically investigated the heavy metal(oid)s (HMs) characteristics of 126 soil samples collected from an industrial agglomeration area, based on which, in vitro assays were conducted to test bioaccessible HMs concentrations, and further integrated into both probabilistic HRA and the prediction of internal exposure levels. The study results of probabilistic HRA indicated that both scenarios showed negligible non-carcinogenic risks (with and without bioaccessibility), but the probabilities of non-carcinogenic risks could decrease by 82.83 % for adults and 78.93 % for children when considering bioaccessibility, along with a significant reduction on the overestimation of carcinogenic risks by approximately 70 %. In addition, internal exposure levels predicted by a physiologically based toxicokinetic (PBTK) model demonstrated that incorporating bioaccessibility led to a substantial reduction in urinary HMs concentrations, with decreases ranging from 60.41 % for Cd to 98.50 % for Cr. Moreover, the deviations from the verification value were consistently lower and more stable across all metals and age groups, indicating that incorporating bioaccessibility into risk assessments provides a more accurate and reliable estimation of HMs exposure to avoid overestimation of associated health risks, and to support more informed decision-making in soil environmental health management.

Quantifying the effect of atmospheric deposition on cadmium (Cd) contamination in soils near the nonferrous metal smelters is challenging. Here, we integrated field-based datasets from in situ experiments and a flux model to evaluate the Cd accumulation risk. The field experiments effectively improved the accuracy of atmospheric Cd deposition flux estimates (103 ± 47.2 g ha-1 in 2022-2023) by minimizing the uncertainties inherent in deposition samplers and directly linking deposition fluxes with the soil Cd accumulation. Field-based datasets guaranteed the precision of flux model, with deviations between predicted and observed values ranging from -1.06 % to -0.173 %. Historical emission trends based on field experiments aligned with the actual emissions in the study area, indicating the validity of this method. The results from the long-term model prediction demonstrated that soil Cd continued to accumulate for up to 35 years, despite a 7 % annual reduction in Cd emissions. To mitigate the potential health concerns in local populations, we propose a comprehensive zoning framework as a remediation strategy to protect 75 % of the local wheat-producing area over the next 30 years. This innovative approach to evaluating changes in soil Cd concentrations provides a precise and scientifically grounded basis for agricultural field safety management in China.

Cadmium (Cd) contamination in paddy soils poses a serious threat to food safety in southern China, yet the dominant processes driving regional Cd accumulation remain poorly quantified. We developed a high-resolution, mass balance-based multi-process model that dynamically couples major input pathways (atmospheric deposition, irrigation, flood inundation, and agricultural inputs) with output pathways including plant uptake, surface runoff, and leaching to estimate spatiotemporal Cd fluxes from 2000 to 2023 in a mining-impacted rice-growing region. Model validation achieved coefficients of determination (R²) of 0.71 in non-floodplain and 0.65 in floodplain areas. Results indicate that atmospheric deposition and flood-induced inputs are the primary accumulation drivers, with mean fluxes of 2.97 and 13.01 mg·m⁻²·a⁻¹ , respectively, while outputs remain limited (total mean: 0.86 mg·m⁻²·a⁻¹), yielding an input-output ratio of 7.6:1. Persistent high-input areas, especially industrial belts and floodplains, show sustained or expanding contamination risk. Scenario simulations to 2080 reveal that integrated mitigation-combining atmospheric emission reduction, sediment removal, and flood control-can reverse Cd accumulation and promote soil recovery within 40 years. The proposed modeling framework is transferable to other contaminants and provides a scientific basis for regional-scale pollution process analysis and precision management, supporting the development of differentiated environmental remediation strategies.

An in-depth investigation of the maximum environmental load is crucial for soil security and pollution prevention. This research focused on soil environmental carrying capacity (SECC) for different risk receptors in a Chinese industrial city. By determining risk threshold for various land use types, we integrated mass balance and iterative models to capture dynamic net input fluxes with spatial heterogeneity. This enabled quantitative characterization of Benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) SECC through top-down and bottom-up approaches (corresponding to duration (D) and rate of regional emission, respectively). The thresholds were in the order of agricultural land < residential land < forest < industrial land < park. The top-down analysis showed D increased similar to 1.5x with a 5% input flux decline until 2031. The bottom-up analysis suggested industrial emissions decreased by approximately 10% as the pollution control period was extended from 20 to 50 years. Both methods showed that at maximum background values (C-0), D was similar to 4x and the industrial emission rate was similar to 10% higher than at minimum C-0. SECC values near industrial areas significantly decreased, even reaching negative values, signifying complete carrying capacity loss. This study provided an approach to the dynamics of SECC under diverse scenarios, aiding informed decision-making for sustainable land management.

Communities of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) in soil are influenced by various agricultural managements, which in turn affects crop productivity. However, the impacts of straw returning on AMF communities are sparsely understood. Here, a 7-year field experiment including three sets of straw managements - returning methods (CK: no-tillage without straw; RT-SR: rotary tillage with straw; DB-SR: ditch-buried tillage with straw), burial amount, burial depth - were applied to evaluate the influences of straw managements on AMF composition. With full amounts of straw return, AMF diversity was similar between DB-SR and CK at a depth of 20 cm, whilst it was 13% higher than that under RT-SR. This could be explained by the increased rhizodeposition under DB-SR may counterbalance the negative effect of tillage under RT-SR on AMF hyphal growth. DB-SR changed AMF composition and enhanced the abundance of Glomeraceae, as well as the amount of glomalin-related protein, as a consequence increased plant P uptake by 68% than RT-SR. DB-SR remained stable plant P uptake and wheat biomass at a burial depth of 40 cm, but it decreased AMF diversity and the abundance of Glomeraceae as compared to DB-SR at a burial of 20 cm. This indicated DB-SR at a burial depth of 40 cm may be not beneficial to crop growth. Our results suggest that ditch-buried straw return with a depth of 20 cm and full amounts of straws is promising to improve soil health (via regulating AMF community diversity and composition) and promote crop production (via increasing plant P uptake).

Soil science research involves the composition, properties, processes, and functions of soil under natural conditions and anthropogenic utilization, and provides scientific basis for the utilization, protection, and sustainable management of soil resources. This review summarizes the significant contributions of Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences (RCEES), Chinese Academy of Sciences, to the advances of soil science. Over past decades, RCEES has conducted innovative research in areas such as soil pollution and remediation, biogeochemical cycling of macro and trace elements and soil microbial ecology. Groundbreaking discoveries have been achieved in research directions such as metal transformation and translocation in the soil-plant continuum, soil microbial diversity and biogeography, and the environmental and health risk of soil contamination. In recent years, on-going projects also involves cutting-edge hotspots, including the environmental behavior of emerging pollutants, and soil organic matter dynamics. The soil lab in RCEES has undertaken important research projects and trained a group of dynamic young scientists, and has also been instrumental in establishing international collaborations, enhancing its global impact through participation in global soil research initiatives and conferences. Concurrently, soil science at RCEES is moving forward to the resilience of soil ecosystems to global changes, integrating soil health into the One Health framework, and sustainable soil management practices. RCEES remains a key player in shaping the future of soil science, contributing to both scientific advances and the sustainable management of soil resources in China.

The risks of Cd intake from dietary sources are often estimated without fully considering Cd bioavailability in food. Based on the data from paired soil, vegetable, rice and urine samples from southern China, this study quantified the transfer of Cd in the soil-food-human system. There were probabilities of 75% that the urinary Cd from local residents (3.11 f 1.98 mu g g-1 creatinine) would exceed the safety threshold, with rice consumption being the largest contributor at 94%. A probabilistic physiologically based toxicokinetic (PBTK) model was used to optimize the strategies for reducing the Cd body burden through the food-blood-plasma-liver-kidney pathway. The liver (21%) and kidneys (37%) are the principal sites of Cd accumulation in the humans, with age and gender being the major controlling factors. Kidney Cd significantly correlates with urinary excretion, making urinary Cd a crucial biomarker for Cd dietary intake. Adult females who consume less rice are more susceptible to Cd exposure due to lower Zn levels in their bodies, which enhance Cd absorption. Even with lower rice consumption, the reduced Zn storage in females increases the risk of Cd accumulation because Zn normally helps reduce Cd absorption. To protect 74% of adult males and 81% of adult females from excessive Cd body burden, it is recommended that local residents consume more food rich in Zn, targeting at least 6.25 mg Zn d-1 for adult females and 5.15 mg Zn d-1 for adult males.

Background Laparoscopic surgery is increasingly used for rectal cancer, but the long-term oncological outcomes for low rectal cancer have not been fully established. We aimed to evaluate the 3-year survival outcomes of laparoscopic surgery versus open surgery in the treatment of low rectal cancer. Methods This multicentre, randomised, controlled, non-inferiority trial was conducted at 22 tertiary hospitals in China. Individuals aged 18-75 years with histologically confirmed cT1-2N0, cT3-4aN0, or cT1-4aN1-2 rectal adenocarcinoma within 5 cm from the dentate line were eligible for inclusion. Participants were randomly assigned (2:1) to undergo laparoscopic surgery or open surgery. Central randomisation was conducted using a web response system, and was stratified by clinical stage, age, sex, BMI, and American Society of Anesthesiologists classification. Investigators, patients and statisticians were not masked to group allocation. The primary outcome was 3-year disease-free survival, defined as the time from the date of surgery to the date of locoregional recurrence, distant metastasis, or death from any cause, whichever occurred first. Non-inferiority was defined as a lower limit of onesided 975% CI for group difference (laparoscopic surgery group minus open surgery group) of greater than -10%. The primary analyses were performed in the modified intention-to-treat population, which excluded patients with distant metastasis discovered during surgery and those who did not undergo surgery or underwent local resection only. The trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01899547, and has been completed. Findings Between Nov 12, 2013, and June 6, 2018, 1070 patients were enrolled and randomly assigned to treatment. 1039 patients (685 in the laparoscopic surgery group and 354 in the open surgery group; median age 57 years, IQR 50 to 64; 620 [60%] male and 419 [40%] women) were included in the modified intention-to-treat analysis. 3-year disease-free survival was 814% (95% CI 782 to 841) in the laparoscopic surgery group and 798% (752 to 836) in the open surgery group (hazard ratio [HR] 092, 95% CI 069 to 123; p=056). The difference between groups was 160% (one-sided 975% CI -334 to infinity, p<00001 for non-inferiority). 3-year overall survival was 917% (95% CI 893 to 935) in the laparoscopic surgery group and 937% (906 to 958) in the open surgery group (HR 134, 95% CI 082 to 219; p=024). 3-year locoregional recurrence was 37% (95% CI 25 to 53) and 23% (11 to 43), respectively (HR 164, 95% CI 074 to 363; p=022). 5-year overall survival was 846% (95% CI 815 to 871) and 866% (825 to 898) in the open group (HR 116, 95% CI 082 to 164; p=041). Interpretation Laparoscopic surgery performed by experienced surgeons is non-inferior to open surgery for 3-year disease-free survival among patients with low rectal cancer. These results support the use of laparoscopic surgery for low rectal cancer. Funding The Key Clinical Specialty Discipline Construction Program of the National Health and Family Planning Commission of China; Minimally Invasive Medical Center Construction Program, Fujian Province, China; and Joint Funds for the Innovation of Science and Technology, Fujian Province, China. Copyright (c) 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.

Policies on the management of paddy fields are usually made at a broad scale and from a long-term perspective, while predicting the spatial extent of cadmium (Cd) contamination in paddy soils remains challenging. In this study, we developed a process-driven spatial model to quantify the transport of Cd in paddy soils and validated it against observed data from a 10-year regional investigation in southern China. Using a geographic information system and Monte Carlo simulation, the model was then applied to evaluate the effectiveness of different remediation strategies for contaminated paddy fields at field-to-regional scales in a 100-year period. In the last decade, atmospheric emissions have accounted for 43.5 % of the total Cd input in local paddy soils. However, the local clean air act failed to mitigate Cd contamination in 99.8 % of study area over the period of 2020-2120 because straw return became the dominant contributor to Cd inputs. Improving aerosol emission reductions by 3 % per year, stopping straw return to soil, and cleaning irrigation channels would take approximately 30 years (2020-2050) to protect 95 % of local rice production from causing an excessive human Cd kidney burden, especially in the paddy fields located in mining-affected areas.

Sushi domain-containing protein 4 (SUSD4) is a complement regulatory protein whose primary function is to inhibit the complement system, and it is involved in immune regulation. The role of SUSD4 in cancer progression has largely remained elusive. SUSD4 was studied across a variety of cancer types in this study. According to the results, there is an association between the expression level of SUSD4 and prognosis in multiple types of cancer. Further analysis demonstrated that SUSD4 expression level was related to immune cell infiltration, immune-related genes, tumor heterogeneity, and multiple cancer pathways. Additionally, we validated the function of SUSD4 in colorectal cancer cell lines and found that knockdown of SUSD4 inhibited cell growth and impacted the JAK/STAT pathway. By characterizing drug sensitivity in organoids, we found that the expression of SUSD4 showed a positive correlation trend with IC50 of Selumetinib, YK-4-279, and Piperlongumine. In conclusion, SUSD4 is a valuable prognostic indicator for diverse types of cancer, and it has the potential to be a target for cancer therapy.

Predicting soil heavy metal (SHM) content is crucial for understanding SHM pollution levels in urban residential areas and guide efforts to reduce pollution. However, current research indicates low SHM prediction accuracy in urban areas. Therefore, we employed a deep learning method (fully connected deep neural network) alongside four other methods (muti-layer perceptron, radial basis function neural network, multiple stepwise linear regression, and Kriging interpolation) to predict SHM content in the urban residential areas of Beijing and demonstrated the strength of deep learning in improving prediction accuracy. We found the contents of the evaluated heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn) exhibited significant correlations with numerous other soil physicochemical properties and environmental factors. The prediction accuracy for Cu, Pb, and Zn contents was relatively high across different methods. Notably, deep learning showed considerable strength in predicting the contents of the four heavy metals, with the R2 for the test set of the model ranging from 0.75 to 0.91. Compared to other methods, deep learning achieved markedly higher prediction accuracy according to different accuracy evaluation indicators (e.g., deep learning showed increases in the cumulative R2 of the four heavy metals ranging from 53.16 % to 187.36 % compared to other methods). Our study indicates that deep learning can significantly improve SHM content prediction accuracy in urban areas and is highly applicable in urban residential areas with complex environmental influences.

Accurately assessing the health risks of cadmium （Cd） exposure in the soil-wheat system is of great importance for the formulation of regional health risk prevention measures. Based on regional large-scale survey and Monte Carlo simulation methods, a case study on the health risk of Cd exposure in a soil-wheat system in a wheat production area of North China Plain was conducted by constructing a comprehensive health risk assessment （CHRA） model. The results showed that 73% of the soil samples in the study area exceeded the screening value of Cd for farmland soil （GB 15618-2018） and 57.8% of the wheat samples exceeded the national standard （GB 2762-2017） for Cd. The hand-mouth ingestion pathway was the main route of soil Cd exposure for adults and children in the region, and under this pathway, 34.7% of adults and 57.4% of children had a cancer risk higher than the safe threshold recommended by USEPA （1E-06）. The comprehensive non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks of cadmium exposure from the soil-wheat system in the region were higher than the safe domain values for both adults and children, with the probabilities of 26.4% and 100% for adults and 62.5% and 100% for children, respectively. The overall trends of the comprehensive risks showed that children had higher risks than those of adults. The combined application of the comprehensive health risk assessment model and the uncertainty random simulation method helps to improve the accuracy of risk decision-making.

Heavy metal(oid)s contamination in soil is a worldwide concerned issue, considering the potentially far-reaching hazards to ecosystem safe and human health. This study provides a comprehensive and systematic review on health risk assessment associated with soil HMs, and carries out a bibliometric analysis in terms of publication years, case distribution, land use characteristics, citation frequency and assessment models. The findings provide valuable knowledge for understanding research status, hotspots, limitations and future direction in assessing human health risks caused by soil HMs, revealing the rapid development and wide concern on this subject with 930 original articles across 67 countries, covering 21 HMs in 7 land use patterns. However, there is an urgent need for addressing uncertainties in quantifying the intricate relationship between HMs contamination and human health, which highlights the significance of probabilistic assessment methods, localized model parameters as well as the incorporation of bioaccessibility. This study contributes to enhance all-round understanding for soil HMs-related health risk assessment, and has broader prospects for performing a more precise and reliable health risk assessment to guide effective risk management.