Spatial Patterns and Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals in Soils in a Resource-Exhausted City, Northeast China

Hongwei Chen, Jing An, Shuhe Wei and Jian Gu

PLOS ONE, 2015, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: Northeast China is an intensive area of resource-exhausted city, which is facing the challenges of industry conversion and sustainable development. In order to evaluate the soil environmental quality influenced by mining activities over decades, the concentration and spatial distribution of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb), and Zinc (Zn) in surface soils (0-20cm) of a typical resource-exhausted city were investigated by analyzing 306 soil samples. The results showed that the average concentrations in the samples were 6.17 mg/kg for As, 0.19 mg/kg for Cd, 51.08 mg/kg for Cr, 23.27 mg/kg for Cu, 31.15 mg/kg for Ni, 22.17 mg/kg for Pb, and 54.21 mg/kg for Zn. Metals distribution maps produced by using the inverse distance weighted interpolation method and results revealed that all investigated metals showed distinct geographical patterns, and the concentrations were higher in urban and industrial areas than in farmland. Pearson correlation and principal component analysis showed that there were significant positive correlations (p

Date: 2015
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0137694

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0137694

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