Distribution and ecological risk assessment of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in different compartments in Kenya: A review

PAHs are one of the environmental contaminants of greatest concern on global scales due to their ecological risk. This study collected the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentration data of six different media in Kenya and evaluated their ecological risk assessment. Twenty-five literatures related to PAHs pollution in Kenya were found to conduct a meta-analysis. Our meta-analysis shows that the geometric means of PAH pollution in water (481.49 ng L-1), sediment (519.15 ng g???1) t, soil (337.46 ng g???1), air (38.60 ng m???3), food (33.12 ng g???1), and other (111,176.90 ng g???1) six media in Kenya had different degrees. The primary sources were combustion sources. A small number of PAHs are petroleum sources. A variety of methods were used to assess the ecological risk of PAHs in different media in Kenya, and we used a tiered approach to assess the ecological risk of water.The risk assessment result showed that the high contamination of Acenaphthylene and Acenaphthelene found in water in Kenya may pose certain ecological risks, which requires necessary measures. The concentration of Benzo[k] fluoranthene in sediment and the concentration of carcinogenic PAHs in soil can also cause the ecological risks, which should be paid more attention. In light of the PAH contamination in various media found in Kenya in the study, further detailed studies should be carried out to provide a more detailed analysis of the distribution of PAHs in Kenya to prevent the severe impact of PAHs contamination in Kenya and Africa. (c) 2022 The Authors. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/).