## 3 Results and Discussion
### Assessing the Health Risks Associated with the PTEs  
#### 3.4.1 Non-Carcinogenic Risks to Humans  
The median values of non-carcinogenic risk assessment indictors, such as CDI, HQ, HI, and CHI are listed in Table 6.  
The median values of non-carcinogenic risk indictors to humans from soil PTEs.  
The median values of the non-carcinogenic CDI and HQ of all of the studied PTEs by direct oral ingestion were substantially higher when compared to those by dermal contact and respiratory inhalation. The median values of daily non-carcinogenic exposure and the health risks associated with the three different pathways were ranked as follows: CDI\({}_{\text{ingestion}}\) > CDI\({}_{\text{dermal}}\) > CDI\({}_{\text{inhalation}}\) and HQ\({}_{\text{ingestion}}\) > HQ\({}_{\text{dermal}}\) > HQ\({}_{\text{inhalation}}\). For children, the order of the median values of the non-carcinogenic risks of PTEs from the three pathways was as follows: As > Pb > Cr >Ni > Cu > Hg > Zn > Cr, while for adults it was As > Cr > Pb > Ni > Cu > Cd > Zn > Hg. In the case of children, the non-carcinogenic health risks were higher than those in adults for all of the PTEs, with the exception of dermal contact, which has a lower non-carcinogenic daily exposure.  
There were no identified non-carcinogenic risks for humans in case of the individual PTEs by the three pathways or by the sum of them, based on the median values, in either children or adults. However, the conclusions are not the same when we consider all sampling points in the research area. Through direct oral ingestion, the majority of the sites represent no significant risk of non-carcinogenic consequences for children and adults. While 19.38% (305 sites) of As and 0.51% (eight sites) of Pb pose a non-carcinogenic risk to children and 0.13% (two sites) of As pose a non-carcinogenic risk to adults through the direct oral ingestion pathway. For all of the pathways, 19.57% (308 sites) of As and 0.51% (eight sites) of Pb pose non-carcinogenic risks for children and 0.25% (four sites) of As pose a non-carcinogenic risk for adults, respectively. All of the total studied PTEs through the three pathways pose non-carcinogenic risks for children and adults were 32.08% (505 sites) and 0.57% (nine sites), respectively. No sites, on the other hand, represented a non-carcinogenic risk to children and adults through inhalation or dermal contact (Table 7).  
Figure 7 shows the distribution of the non-carcinogenic risk of PTEs to children and adults determined by IDW interpolation. The distribution of sites with significant non-carcinogenic risk to humans is in accordance with the distribution of the Hg and Cu-Pb-Zn deposits. Children are more vulnerable to environmental contaminants when compared to adults due to behavioral and physiological differences [98]. As poses the highest non-carcinogenic risk when compared to the other studied PTEs because it has the lowest non-carcinogenic daily intake reference dose permitted by oral ingestion.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & & **As** & **Cd** & **Cr** & **Cu** & **Hg** & **Ni** & **Pb** & **Zn** \\ \hline \hline  & & **Median** & **Median** & **Median** & **Median** & **Median** & **Median** & **Median** & **Median** & **Median** \\ \hline CDI\({}_{\text{ingestion}}\) & Children & \(1.57\times 10^{-4}\) & \(1.79\times 10^{-6}\) & \(1.80\times 10^{-4}\) & \(3.90\times 10^{-4}\) & \(1.01\times 10^{-6}\) & \(4.90\times 10^{-4}\) & \(3.2