Affiliation:
1. National Demonstration Center for Environmental and Planning, College of Geography and Environmental Science, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China
2. Key Laboratory of Geospatial Technology for the Middle and Lower Yellow River Regions, Henan University, Ministry of Education, Kaifeng 475004, China
3. Henan Engineering Research Center for Control & Remediation of Soil Heavy Metal Pollution, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, China
4. School of Geographic Sciences, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang 464000, China
5. Puyang Branch of Municipal Bureau of Ecological Environment, Puyang 457100, China
Abstract
A total of 137 farmland soil samples were collected around a lead/zinc smelter within 64 km2. The concentration, spatial distribution, and potential source of nine heavy metal(oid)s (As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, V, and Zn) in soils and their potential ecological risk were investigated in detail. The results showed that the average concentrations of Cd, Pb, Cr and Zn in these soils were higher than their background value in Henan Province, and the average content of Cd was 2.83 times of the risk screening values in the national standard of China (GB 15618-2018). According to the distribution of different heavy metal(oid)s in soils, Cd and Pb in soil decrease gradually with the increase of distance from the smelter to the surrounding area. This indicates that the Pb and Cd originate from smelters via airborne practices according to the typical air pollution diffusion model. The distribution of Zn, Cu, and As were similar to Cd and Pb. However, Ni, V, Cr, and Co were mainly affected by soil parent materials. The potential ecological risk of Cd was higher than those of other elements, and the risk grade of the other eight elements was mainly low. The polluted soils with significantly high and high potential ecological risk covered 93.84% of all the studied regions. This should be of serious concern to government. The results of a principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) show that Pb, Cd, Zn, Cu, and As were the elements mainly stemmed from smelter and other types of plants, with a contribution rate of 60.08%, while Co, Cr, Ni, and V are mainly caused by nature, with a contribution rate of 26.26%.
Funder
National Key Laboratory of Human Factors Engineering
Henan Provincial Department of Education
Subject
Chemical Health and Safety,Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis,Toxicology