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Quantitative identification and source apportionment of anthropogenic heavy metals in marine sediment of Hong Kong

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Environmental Geology

Abstract

Based on ten heavy metals collected twice annually at 59 sites from 1998 to 2004, enrichment factors (EFs), principal component analysis (PCA) and multivariate linear regression of absolute principal component scores (MLR-APCS) were used in identification and source apportionment of the anthropogenic heavy metals in marine sediment. EFs with Fe as a normalizer and local background as reference values was properly tested and suitable in Hong Kong, and Zn, Ni, Pb, Cu, Cd, Hg and Cr mainly originated from anthropogenic sources, while Al, Mn and Fe were derived from rocks weathering. Rotated PCA and GIS mapping further identified two types of anthropogenic sources and their impacted regions: (1) electronic industrial pollution, riparian runoff and vehicle exhaust impacted the entire Victoria Harbour, inner Tolo Harbour, Eastern Buffer, inner Deep Bay and Cheung Chau; and (2) discharges from textile factories and paint, influenced Tsuen Wan Bay and Kwun Tong typhoon shelter and Rambler Channel. In addition, MLR-APCS was successfully introduced to quantitatively determine the source contributions with uncertainties almost less than 8%: the first anthropogenic sources were responsible for 50.0, 45.1, 86.6, 78.9 and 87.5% of the Zn, Pb, Cu, Cd and Hg, respectively, whereas 49.9% of the Ni and 58.4% of the Cr came from the second anthropogenic sources.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Prof. Shu Tao and Mr. Yu Yang for their valuable suggestions. This paper was supported by the China Scholarship programs (2006100766) for Feng Zhou and the National Basic Research Program (No.2005CB724205). The opinions in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect the views or policies of HKEPD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Room 208, Old Geosciences Building, Beijing, 100871, People’s Republic of China

    Feng Zhou & Huaicheng Guo

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, B3J 1Z1, Canada

    Lei Liu

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  1. Feng Zhou
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  2. Huaicheng Guo
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  3. Lei Liu
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Correspondence to Huaicheng Guo.

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Zhou, F., Guo, H. & Liu, L. Quantitative identification and source apportionment of anthropogenic heavy metals in marine sediment of Hong Kong. Environ Geol 53, 295–305 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-007-0644-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00254-007-0644-7

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