Does the groundwater nitrate pollution in China pose a risk to human health? A critical review of published data

Nitrate pollution has pervaded many parts of the world, especially in developing countries such as China. Based on the available groundwater nitrate data sets in China (2000–2015), the groundwater pollution levels at the provincial scale are evaluated which contains 33 provinces (units) except for Macau because of lacking data. Then, the potential risks posed to human health in national scale are quantified. In order to make the results more precise and systematical, both drinking and dermal contact exposure pathways are considered, and the influenced crowd are more finely divided into four groups to study the impacts of age and gender on the outcome, which include infants (0–6 months), children (7 months–17 years old), adult males (18 years old–), and adult females (18 years old–). Results indicate that there are seven units whose groundwater nitrate concentrations exceed the standard value with Shaanxi being a seriously poor condition. Facing the same level of nitrate, the health risk level changes in the order of infants > children > adult males > adult females. That is to say, minors and males are more vulnerable compared with adults and females, respectively. There is no adverse effect on adult females of the whole country, while gender really impacts on the health risk assessment result. Adult males, children, and infants face various degrees of health risk respectively in Shaanxi and Shandong, which are needed to pay more attention to.