Influence of Acid Mine Drainage Leakage from Tailings Ponds on the Soil Quality of Desert Steppe in the Northwest Arid Region of China

Abstract

As decision-making tools helping to improve the understanding of soil quality, soil quality assessment and heavy metal pollution assessment are very important for the remediation of heavy metal soil pollution. In the past, soil quality and heavy metal pollution have been studied separately, and few studies have combined them. The desert steppe in the Northwest Arid Region is an important pasture resource in China, and its soil safety has always been the focus of attention. Therefore, to understand the impact of tailing stockpiles on the soil quality of desert steppe, this study analyzed 18 indicators in the sample and analyzed the soil quality status of desert steppe based on the soil quality index (SQI) and Nemerow pollution index (Pcom). The main conclusions are as follows. (1) The evaluation results of heavy metal soil pollution show that the heavy metals Cu, Ni, Cr and Cd are significant polluters, Mn is a moderate polluter and Zn is a slight polluter. The results of the positive matrix factorization model show that Cu and Ni come from industrial sources; Cr, Cd and Zn come from industrial and traffic sources; and Mn comes from natural sources. (2) Regarding the study area, the generated minimum data set contains clay, pH, soil organic matter, available phosphorus, urease and neutral phosphatase. (3) The results of the SQI show that the soil in the study area is grade V (SQI-TDSave (total data set) = 0.42; SQI-MDSave (minimum data set) = 0.39), and the soil condition is very poor. 4) The linear fitting results show that the SQI-MDS was positively correlated with the SQI-TDS (R2 = 0.79), and SQI-MDS and SQI-TDS were negatively correlated with the Pcom (R2 > 0.6). Therefore, the leakage of acid mine drainage from tailings pond accumulation has led to a significant decline in the soil quality of this desert steppe, and effective ecological restoration measures are urgently needed to ensure the sustainable stability of the steppe ecosystem.