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Pollution, risks, and sources of heavy metals in sediments from the urban rivers flowing into Haizhou Bay, China

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Abstract

The Haizhou Bay in eastern China, for a long time, is seriously polluted with heavy metals (HMs) due to intensive anthropic pressure. The river runoff is the dominant pathway of HM transport in the coastal region. However, the information on HM pollution in coastal rivers flowing into Haizhou Bay was still limited, and potential risks and possible sources raised by HMs in this area were neglected up to now. To fully understand the distribution and ecological risks of sediments in seven rivers along the bay, surface sediments were collected and seven HMs (Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, and Pb) were investigated. The results showed that HM concentrations generally met the primary standard criteria of China (marine sediment quality), except for Cu and Zn. On the other hand, Zn and Cu tended to exhibit probable adverse biological effects in the Shawang River comparison with some sediment quality guidelines (SQGs). Moreover, the enrichment factor and geo-accumulation index demonstrated that there was no or slight contamination to be found for Cr, Mn, Ni, Cu, Zn, and Pb and moderate pollution for Cd. The contamination factor (Cfi), integrated contamination degree (CF), modified degree of contamination (mCd), and modified pollution index (MPI) revealed individual metal contamination in localized areas. In these river sediments, the potential ecological risk (RI) was low to moderate, except Cd posted a considerable ecological risk because of its high enrichment. Furthermore, the Shawang River and Linhong River were seriously polluted with HMs among seven rivers. These results provided a new direction for controlling HM pollution in Haizhou Bay which suggested substantial measures should be implemented to alleviate the potential risk of HMs, to these rivers sediments.

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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.

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Funding

This study was financially supported by the Marine Special Program of Jiangsu Province in China (JSZRHYKJ202007), the National Natural Science Foundation (U1901215), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41771218; 41271228), and the Startup Foundation for Introducing Talent of NUIST (No. 2020r047).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Marine Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Xiaoqian Deng, Longjiang Mao, Yuling Wu & Yuanzhi Zhang

  2. School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Xi’an Polytechnic University, Xi’an 710048, China

    Zhihai Tan & Wanzhu Feng

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  1. Xiaoqian Deng
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  2. Longjiang Mao
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  3. Yuling Wu
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  4. Zhihai Tan
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  5. Wanzhu Feng
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  6. Yuanzhi Zhang
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Longjiang Mao;

Methodology: Zhihai Tan, Wanzhu Feng;

Formal analysis and investigation: Xiaoqian Deng, Longjiang Mao, …;

Writing — original draft preparation: Xiaoqian Deng;

Writing — review and editing: Longjiang Mao, Yuling Wu;

Funding acquisition: Longjiang Mao;

Resources: Longjiang Mao, Yuanzhi Zhang;

Supervision: Longjiang Mao, Yuling Wu, Yuanzhi Zhang.

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Correspondence to Longjiang Mao.

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Deng, X., Mao, L., Wu, Y. et al. Pollution, risks, and sources of heavy metals in sediments from the urban rivers flowing into Haizhou Bay, China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 38054–38065 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-18151-5

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