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Fractionation and risk assessment of potentially toxic elements in surface soil from northeast China mountains

  • Soils, Sec 2 • Global Change, Environ Risk Assess, Sustainable Land Use • Research Article
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Abstract

Purpose

The acceleration of industrialization and urbanization has increased the deposition of potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in the remote area of northeast (NE) China, which is facing rising environmental pressure. The objectives of this study are to characterize the PTEs pollution level, possible sources and the potential ecological risk in the mountain regions of NE China.

Methods

In this study, the BCR sequential extraction procedure was applied for partitioning the four fractions (acid soluble, reducible, oxidizable and residual) of 16 PTEs (As, Be, Ba, Cu, Co, Cd, Cr, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sr, Sb, Tl, V, and Zn) in 53 surface soils collected from the Great and Lesser Hinggan mountains. The geoaccumulation index (Igeo) and the Håkanson index (RI) were used to evaluate a regional pollution status and the potential ecological risk. The multivariate analysis was used to identify the PTEs potential sources.

Results and discussion

As, Be, Ba, Co, Mn, Ni, and Sr are mainly associated with reactive forms, which represent the metal bound to carbonates or sorbed/exchangeable phases, and the other metals like Pb, Zn, Cr, Cd, Sb, and Tl are mainly associated with the residual phase. The spatial pattern showed an increase of these PTEs contents in the soil environment from the southern Great Hinggan mountain to the Lesser Hinggan mountain, with an opposite trend for the potential risk of PTEs because of the altitude effect. The Cd, As and Pb pollution was significant with a high ecological risk, especially for Cd. PCA analysis suggested four potential sources for the PTEs accumulation in the soils: natural lithogenic sources, agricultural fertilizer, anthropogenic mining, and leaching migration.

Conclusions

Information from this study constitutes an estimation of PTEs pollution status and possible sources in the mountains’ surface soils. It represents a reference for future studies on soil monitoring and environmental protection in remote areas. The trend of soil pollution in remote mountainous areas makes us more alert to the global soil health problems and it is urgent to halt soil pollution and degradation for the realization of sustainable development goals.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editors and reviewers for their critical and constructive comments and suggestions. The soil classification data support from "National Earth System Science Data Center, National Science & Technology Infrastructure of China. (http://www.geodata.cn)"

Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 41971113 and 41907381) and the Foreign Experts Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology (no. QN2022030007L). K. Bao is also grateful to the Scientific Research Foundation for Young Talents of South China Normal University (118/8S0593).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China

    Kunshan Bao, Kewei Zhao, Ying Yan & Bigyan Neupane

  2. Ecolab, Université de Toulouse, INPT, Toulouse, 31326, France

    Rongqin Liu

  3. National Park Research Center, Sanming University, Sanming, 365004, China

    Wei Xing

  4. Institute of Fundamental Research and Studies (InFeRS), Kathmandu, 44600, Nepal

    Bigyan Neupane

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  1. Kunshan Bao
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  2. Kewei Zhao
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Contributions

Kunshan Bao: conceptualization, project administration, investigation, methodology, writing—original draft, and writing—reviewing and editing. Kewei Zhao: software, formal analysis, writing—original draft. Rongqin Liu: investigation, methodology, writing—original draft. Wei Xing: software, investigation. Ying Yan: methodology, software. Bigyan Neupane: writing—reviewing and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kunshan Bao.

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Bao, K., Zhao, K., Liu, R. et al. Fractionation and risk assessment of potentially toxic elements in surface soil from northeast China mountains. J Soils Sediments 23, 687–699 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-022-03360-3

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