Soil‐quality guidelines related to combined pollution of chromium and phenol in agricultural environments

Based on the experiment on joint effects of Cr and phenol on soil‐rice systems and single‐factor pollution of Cr or phenol in soil‐rice systems using a pot‐culture method combined with chemical and statistical analyses, soil‐quality guidelines for Cr and phenol were tentatively suggested. Moreover, the decrease in yield of rice, bioaccumulation of Cr and phenol in rice, and deficiency of essential elements such as Fe for human health in rice due to the interaction between Cr and phenol in paddy soil were considered in this research on numerical soil‐environmental quality guidelines. The conclusions were that the threshold concentrations of Cr and phenol in the paddy soil were, respectively, 72.55–114.33 and 10.02 mg/kg under the condition of single‐factor soil pollution of Cr or phenol, and they were 77.88–96.40 and 1.57 mg/kg under the condition of chromium‐phenol combined pollution.