Share:


Soil heavy metal contamination in rural land consolidation areas in the Yangtze River Delta, China

    Jingjing Zeng Affiliation
    ; Shenglu Zhou Affiliation
    ; Ligang Lv Affiliation
    ; Quanlong Su Affiliation
    ; Jing Wang Affiliation

Abstract

Due to the rapid urbanization of the Yangtze River Delta in China, large numbers of formerly rural residents have migrated to the cities. To adjust the structure of rural land use, the government has performed extensive land consolidation. Previous studies indicated that the land consolidation has affected farmland quality to some extent. However, the effect of the land consolidation on farmland heavy metal concentrations has rarely been reported. In this study, the Jintan District was used as an example, and 40 sampling sites of various consolidation types in 4 representative areas of rural land consolidation were selected. Soil samples were collected from these sites, and the heavy metal concentrations were analyzed. We used multivariate methods of correlation analysis and principal component analysis to study the conditions and sources of the heavy metal contamination in the soil. The results indicate that the mean concentrations of Cd, Hg, Ni, Cu, and Zn in the soil all exceeded the background values. The mean concentration of Cd was 0.409 mg/kg, and the enrichment factor (EF) was 4.54, making Cd the most prevalent heavy metal soil contaminant in the study area. The enrichment of soil heavy metals varied among the various representative areas. Suburban areas surrounding the central cities were mainly enriched in Hg, with an EF of 6.20. The comprehensive development zone displayed enrichment in Cd, with an EF of 7.79. The heavy metal concentrations in the soil also differed depending on the type of land consolidation. The reclaimed soil of rural settlements contained high levels of Cd and Zn, with EFs of 7.25 and 2.52, respectively, which were related to the land use before the land consolidation. The soil heavy metals of the study area were affected by both human activity and natural background contamination.

Keyword : enrichment factor, land consolidation, potential ecology risk, reclamation of rural settlements, soil heavy metal, Yangtze River Delta

How to Cite
Zeng, J., Zhou, S., Lv, L., Su, Q., & Wang, J. (2018). Soil heavy metal contamination in rural land consolidation areas in the Yangtze River Delta, China. Journal of Environmental Engineering and Landscape Management, 26(1), 28-37. https://doi.org/10.3846/16486897.2017.1346512
Published in Issue
Mar 20, 2018
Abstract Views
1079
PDF Downloads
836
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

References

Chen, X. 2007. A tale of two regions in China rapid economic development and slow industrial upgrading in the Pearl River and the Yangtze River deltas, International Journal of Comparative Sociology 48: 167–201. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020715207075399

Demetriou, D.; Stillwell. J; See, L. 2012. Land consolidation in Cyprus: why is an integrated planning and decision support system required?, Land Use Policy 29: 131–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2011.05.012

Elias, P.; Gbadegesin, A. 2011. Spatial relationships of urban land use, soils and heavy metal concentrations in Lagos mainland area, Journal of Applied Sciences & Environmental Management 15(2): 391–399.

Esmaeili, A.; Moore, F.; Keshavarzi, B.; Jaafarzadeh, N.; Kermani, M. 2014. A geochemical survey of heavy metals in agricultural and background soils of the Isfahan industrial zone, Iran, Catena 121: 88–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2014.05.003

Fellet, G.; Marchiol, L.; Delle Vedove, G.; Peressotti, A. 2011. App­lication of biochar on mine tailings: effects and perspectives for land reclamation, Chemosphere 83: 1262–1267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2011.03.053

Gu, C.; Hu, L.; Zhang, X.; Wang, X.; Guo, J. 2011. Climate change and urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta, Habitat International 35: 544–552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2011.03.002

Guédron, S.; Amouroux, D.; Sabatier, P.; Desplanque, C.; Develle, A.-L.; Barre, J.; Feng, C.; Guiter, F.; Arnaud, F.; Reyss, J. L.; Charlet, L. 2016. A hundred year record of industrial and urban development in French Alps combining Hg accumulation rates and isotope composition in sediment archives from Lake Luitel, Chemical Geology 431: 10–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemgeo.2016.03.016

Ha, H.; Olson, J. R.; Bian, L.; Rogerson, P. A. 2014. Analysis of heavy metal sources in soil using Kriging interpolation on principal components, Environmental Science & Technology 48: 4999–5007. https://doi.org/10.1021/es405083f

Håkanson, L. 1980. An ecological risk index for aquatic pollution control: a sedimentological approach, Water Research 14: 975–1001. https://doi.org/10.1016/0043-1354(80)90143-8

Hao, X.; Zhou, D.; Huang, D.; Cang, L.; Zhang, H.; Wang, H. 2009. Heavy metal transfer from soil to vegetable in southern Jiangsu Province, China, Pedosphere 19: 305–311. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1002-0160(09)60121-1

Insam, H.; Domsch, K. H. 1988. Relationship between soil organic carbon and microbial biomass on chronosequences of reclamation sites, Microbial Ecology 15: 177–188. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02011711

Ji, C.; Zahra, D. N.; Myung, C. J. 2017. Arsenic and heavy metals in paddy soil and polished rice contaminated by mining activities in Korea, Catena 148: 92–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2016.01.005

Jiang, J.-Z.; Hao, J.-M.; Wu, Y.; David, G. S.; Duan, L.; Tian, H. Z. 2005. Development of mercury emission inventory from coal combustion in China, Environmental Science 2: 34–39 (in Chinese).

Kelepertzis, E. 2014. Accumulation of heavy metals in agricultural soils of Mediterranean: Insights from Argolida basin, Peloponnese, Greece, Geoderma 221–222: 82–90. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2014.01.007

Kowalska, J.; Mazurek, R.; Gasiorek, M.; Setlak, M.; Zaleski, T.; Waroszewski, J. 2016. Soil pollution indices conditioned by medieval metallurgical activity e a case study from Krakow (Poland), Environmental Pollution 218: 1023–1036. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2016.08.053

Li, Y.; Gou, X.; Wang, G.; Zhang, Q.; Su, Q. 2008. Heavy metal contamination and source in arid agricultural soil in central Gansu Province, China, Journal of Environmental Sciences 20: 607–612. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1001-0742(08)62101-4

Liao, Q.-L.; Evans, L. J.; Gu, X.; Fan, D.-F.; Jin, Y.; Wang, H. 2011. Geochemical baseline values of elements in soil of Jiangsu Province, Geology China 38: 1363–1378 (in Chinese).

Liu, S. L.; Dong, Y. H.; Li, D.; Liu, Q.; Wang, J.; Zhang, X. L. 2013. Effects of different Terrace protection measures in a sloping land consolidation project targeting soil erosion at the slope scale, Ecological Engineering 53: 46–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2012.12.001

Long, H.; Tang, G.; Li, X.; Heilig, G. K. 2007. Socio-economic driving forces of land-use change in Kunshan, the Yangtze River Delta economic area of China, Journal of Environmental Management 83: 351–364. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2006.04.003

Mace, J. E.; Amrhein, C. 2001. Leaching and reclamation of a soil irrigated with moderate SAR waters, Soil Science Society of America Journal 65: 199–204. https://doi.org/10.2136/sssaj2001.651199x

Mazurek, R.; Kowalska, J.; Gasiorek, M.; Zadrozny, P.; Jozefowska, A.; Zaleski, T.; Kepka, W.; Tymczuk, M.; Orłowska, K. 2016. Assessment of heavy metals contamination in surface layers of Roztocze National Park forest soils (SE Poland) by indices of pollution, Chemosphere 1–12 (in press).

Mukhopadhyay, S.; Maiti, S. K.; Masto, R. E. 2014. Development of mine soil quality index (MSQI) for evaluation of reclamation success: a chronosequence study, Ecological Engineering 71: 10–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2014.07.001

Pereira, J. C.; Azevedo, J. C.; Knapik, H. G.; Burrows, H. D. 2016. Unsupervised component analysis: PCA, POA and ICA data exploring – connecting the dots, Spectrochimica Acta Part A Molecular & Biomolecular Spectroscopy 165: 69–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2016.03.048

Pouyat, R. V.; Yesilonis, I. D.; Russell-Anelli, J.; Neerchal, N. K. 2007. Soil chemical and physical properties that differentiate urban land-use and cover types, Soil Science Society of America Journal 71: 1010–1019. https://doi.org/10.2136/sssaj2006.0164

Ratha, D. S.; Sahu, B. K. 1993. Source and distribution of metals in urban soil of Bombay, India, using multivariate statistical techniques, Environmental Geology 22: 276–285. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00767413

Shao, D.; Zhan, Y.; Zhou, W.; Zhu, L. 2016. Current status and temporal trend of heavy metals in farmland soil of the Yangtze River Delta Region: Field survey and meta-analysis, Environmental Pollution 219: 329–336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2016.10.023

Sheoran, V.; Sheoran, A.; Poonia, P. 2010. Soil reclamation of abandoned mine land by revegetation: a review, International Journal of Soil Sediment & Water 3: 13.

Tang, Y.; Mason, R. J.; Wang, Y. 2015. Governments’ functions in the process of integrated consolidation and allocation of rural–urban construction land in China, Journal of Rural Studies 42: 43–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2015.09.010

Uyan, M. 2016. Determination of agricultural soil index using geostatistical analysis and GIS on land consolidation projects: a case study in Konya/Turkey, Computers & Electronics in Agriculture 123: 402–409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2016.03.019

Wang, L.; Coles, A. N.; Wu, C.; Wu, P. 2014. Spatial variability of heavy metals in the coastal soils under long-term reclamation, Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 151: 310–317. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2014.07.001

Wang, X. J. 2008. Kriging and heavy metal pollution assessment in wastewater irrigated agricultural soil of Beijing’s eastern farming regions, Journal of Environmental Science & Health Part A Toxic/hazardous Substances & Environmental Engineering 33(6): 1057–1073. https://doi.org/10.1080/10934529809376776

Wilding, L. P. 1985. Spatial variability: its documentation, accommodation and implication to soil surveys, in D. R. Nielsen, J. Bouma (Eds.). Soil Spatial Variability. Pudoc, Wageningen: Netherlands, 166–193.

Wu, S.; Zhou, S.; Chen, D.; Wei, Z.; Dai, L.; Li, X. 2014. Determining the contributions of urbanisation and climate change to NPP variations over the last decade in the Yangtze River Delta, China, Science of The Total Environment 472: 397–406. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2013.10.128

Wu, S.; Zhou, S.; Li, X.; Johnson, W. C.; Zhang, H.; Shi, J. 2010. Heavy-metal accumulation trends in Yixing, China: an area of rapid economic development, Environmental Earth Sciences 61: 79–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-009-0321-0

Yan, J.; Xia, F.; Bao, H. X. H. 2015. Strategic planning framework for land consolidation in China: a top-level design based on SWOT analysis, Habitat International 48: 46–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2015.03.001

Zhang, C. 2006. Using multivariate analyses and GIS to identify pollutants and their spatial patterns in urban soils in Galway, Ireland, Environmental Pollution 142: 501–511. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2005.10.028

Zhang, J.; Hua, P.; Krebs, P. 2015. The build-up dynamic and chemical fractionation of Cu, Zn and Cd in road-deposited sediment, Science of the Total Environment 532: 723–732. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.06.074

Zhang, Z.; Zhao, W.; Gu, X. 2014. Changes resulting from a land consolidation project (LCP) and its resource–environment effects: a case study in Tianmen city of Hubei province, China, Land Use Policy 40: 74–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2013.09.013

Zhao, Y.; Wang, Z.; Sun, W.; Huang, B.; Shi, X.; Ji, J. 2010. Spatial interrelations and multi-scale sources of soil heavy metal variability in a typical urban–rural transition area in Yangtze River Delta region of China, Geoderma 156: 216–227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2010.02.020

Zheng, R.; Zhao, J.; Zhou, X.; Ma, C.; Wang, L.; Gao, X. 2016. Land use effects on the distribution and speciation of heavy metals and arsenic in coastal soils on Chongming Island in the Yangtze River Estuary, China, Pedosphere 26: 74–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1002-0160(15)60024-8

Zhong, X.-L.; Zhou, S.-L.; Zhu, Q.; Zhao, Q.-G. 2011. Fraction distribution and bioavailability of soil heavy metals in the Yangtze River Delta – a case study of Kunshan city in Jiangsu province, China, Journal of Hazardous Materials 198: 13–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2011.10.003