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Contamination characteristics, source analysis, and spatial prediction of soil heavy metal concentrations on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

  • Soils, Sec 5 • Soil and Landscape Ecology • Research Article
  • Published:
Journal of Soils and Sediments Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Soil heavy metal distribution is a key issue in environmental and health research. In recent years, an increasing number of anthropogenic disturbances have been identified on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, leading to increased heavy metal contamination of soils. Therefore, this study investigated the distribution, sources, ecological risk, and prediction of heavy metals in soils on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.

Material and methods

Here, for each of the seven heavy metals (i.e., Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, and Pb) investigated in the soil of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, we collected soil concentration values from the literature and carried out field sampling to generate new data. We then assessed the pollution characteristics and sources of soil heavy metals on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau using geostatistics, positive matrix factorization model (PMF), disjunctive kriging, and mapped the pollution risk probability distribution of each heavy metal element.

Results and discussion

Spatial autocorrelation was found for all seven heavy metals in the soils. Under different land-use types, the average concentrations of Cr, As, and Cd were highest in the water areas; Ni levels were highest in woodland; and Cu, Zn, and Pb concentrations were highest in residential, industrial, and mining lands. Using analysis by the PMF model and correlation analysis, four heavy metal sources were identified, including industrial sources and atmospheric deposition (Cd), traffic emissions (Cr, Zn, and Zn), natural sources (Ni and As), and mining activities (Cr and Pb). The pollution risk probabilities of Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, and Pb were low in most areas of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, whereas the pollution risk probability of Cd was high over 29% of the area of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Conclusion

The results highlighted no potential contamination for Cr, local potential contamination for Ni, Cu, Zn, As and Pb, while Cd exhibits more extensive contamination in the soils of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Cd reduction should therefore be considered an important component of the strategy, policy, and action plan for soil pollution management on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Source apportionment of heavy metals in the study area. a The percentage of contribution for each factor by the PMF model. b Factor profiles of HMs in soils from the PMF model. c Identification of the correlations between HMs by combining Pearson’s correlation coefficient analysis and the PMF model

Fig. 5

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Data availability

The datasets used or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) (No. 2019QZKK0605) and the Gansu Provincial Youth Science and Technology Fund Program (No. 21JR7RA701). We also thank Pengcheng Huang from the Gansu Meteorological Bureau and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments in improving the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Arid Climatic Change and Reducing Disaster of Gansu Province, Key Open Laboratory of Arid Climate Change and Disaster Reduction of CMA, Institute of Arid Meteorology, CMA, Lanzhou, 730020, China

    Haolin Du, Jinsong Wang, Ying Wang, Yubi Yao & Xiaoyun Liu

  2. Gansu Key Laboratory of Arid Climatic Change and Reducing Disaster, Key Laboratory of Arid Climatic Change and Disaster Reduction, Lanzhou Institute of Arid Meteorology of China Meteorology Administration, Lanzhou, 730020, China

    Jinsong Wang

  3. Hubei Key Laboratory for Heavy Rain Monitoring and Warning Research, Institute of Heavy Rain, CMA, Wuhan, 430205, China

    Yue Zhou

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  1. Haolin Du
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  4. Yubi Yao
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Contributions

Haolin Du: conceptualization, methodology, software, investigation, formal analysis, writing—original draft; Jinsong Wang: conceptualization, funding acquisition, resources, supervision, writing—review and editing; Ying Wang: Visualization, investigation; Yubi Yao: resources, supervision; Xiaoyun Liu: software, validation; Yue Zhou: visualization, writing—review and editing.

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Correspondence to Jinsong Wang.

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Du, H., Wang, J., Wang, Y. et al. Contamination characteristics, source analysis, and spatial prediction of soil heavy metal concentrations on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. J Soils Sediments 23, 2202–2215 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-023-03462-6

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