International Journal of Environmental Science and Development

Abstract—According to the total amount and morphological results of heavy metals (Cd²⁺, Cr³⁺, Cu²⁺, Pb²⁺, Zn²⁺) in cropland in Tianyuan Township, Wuxi County, Nemerow index, potential ecological risk index and geo-accumulation index method were utilized to assess the potential risks of heavy metals in soil. The consequences made clear that the average content of 5 heavy metals in the agricultural topsoil of Tianyuan Township, Wuxi County was: Zn²⁺ (85.92 mg/kg)>Cr³⁺ (73.00 mg/kg)>Pb²⁺ (31.17 mg/kg)>Cu²⁺ (31.16 mg/kg)>Cd²⁺ (1.61 mg/kg); Cr³⁺, Cu²⁺ and Zn²⁺ were mainly residuals, the average proportion was 91.61%, 84.48% and 72.30%, respectively. Pb²⁺ was mainly Fe/Mn oxide bound (38.24%) and residuals (49.22%), and Cd²⁺ was mainly exchangeable (22.25%) and Fe/Mn oxide bound (47.57%). Nemerow index, potential ecological risk index method and geo-accumulation index method all indicated that Cd²⁺ pollution was relatively serious, and Cr₃₊, Cu²⁺, Pb²⁺ and Zn²⁺ were all in a relatively clean state. Correlation analysis and principal component analysis showed that Cr³⁺ was mainly affected by natural factor soil parent material. Human pollution mainly had an effect upon Cd²⁺, Pb²⁺ and Zn²⁺, including traffic emissions and agricultural activities, and Cu²⁺ was jointly affected by two factors.

Index Terms—Ecological risk, heavy metals, pollution assessment, source apportionment.

The authors are with College of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Chongqing Three Gorges University, Chongqing, China, China (corresponding author: Chuan Fu; e-mail: zhcszx@126.com, casual2005@163.com, 57117948@qq.com, helloyanbin@163.com, wuyan19850827@hotmail.com@qq.com).

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Cite: Hengchang Zhang, Chuan Fu, Tingzhen Li, Bin Yan, and Yan Wu, "Risk Assessment and Source Analysis of Heavy Metal in Agricultural Soil of a Township in Wuxi County," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 10, no. 12, pp. 450-455, 2019.

Copyright © 2019 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).