Pollution Status, Risk Assessment, and Source Identification of Heavy Metals in Farmland Topsoil of Mining Area Along the Yangtze River, East China

Xinzhan Sun (), Bin Wang and Zhitao Li ()
Additional contact information
Xinzhan Sun: Technical Centre for Soil, Agriculture and Rural Ecology and Environment, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Beijing 100012, China
Bin Wang: Technical Centre for Soil, Agriculture and Rural Ecology and Environment, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Beijing 100012, China
Zhitao Li: Technical Centre for Soil, Agriculture and Rural Ecology and Environment, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Beijing 100012, China

Agriculture, 2025, vol. 15, issue 21, 1-12

Abstract: This study evaluates the pollution status, ecological risks, health risks, and sources of heavy metals from farmland in a mining city located in the Yangtze River basin, East China. A total of 2361 samples of topsoil were collected and analyzed for the concentration of five heavy metals and pH. The Nemerow index was used to assess integrated pollution, while absolute principal component scores-multiple linear regression (APCS-MLR) was used to identify the sources of heavy metals. The results revealed that, excluding Hg and Cr, the concentrations of Cd, As, and Pb in some samples exceeded intervention values, with Cd concentrations in 19.7% of samples surpassing this threshold. Based on the Nemerow index, 68.8% of sites were contaminated, with 27.4% classified as heavily polluted, indicating significant pollution in this area. Cd posed the primary ecological risk, with 19.8% of sites at high risk or above, also presenting carcinogenic risks to adults. Additionally, As exceeded safety thresholds for hazard quotient (HQ = 1) and carcinogenic risk (CR = 1 × 10 −4 ). APCS-MLR revealed that heavy metals in farmland were mainly influenced by mining, agricultural activities, and natural soil-forming processes. This study offers insights into farmland heavy metal management and highlights industrial pollution sources in mining areas.

Keywords: pollution risks; human health risk; heavy metal; agricultural soil (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/21/2181/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/15/21/2181/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:15:y:2025:i:21:p:2181-:d:1776693

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().