Characterization of heavy metal pollution in the paddy soils of Xiangyin County, Dongting lake drainage basin, central south China

The heavy metal accumulation in soils caused by industrialization has attracted broad attention. To evaluate the soil environmental quality of Xiangyin County, an important food production base in China, 99 top paddy soil samples were analyzed for total concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Zn and Pb. Kriging interpolation was used to determine the spatial distribution of the metals. The assessment of soil environmental quality was performed according to pollution index methods. As the results showed, except for Cu, Cr and Ni, the mean concentrations of Zn, Pb, Cd, As and Hg in soils were elevated to different extents when compared with the background values. Moreover, except for Cd, contents of seven other elements in most soil samples were below the Class II criteria for Chinese environmental quality standards, which established the maximum allowable concentration of heavy metal in the farmland. Therefore, the soils were believed to be polluted mainly by Cd. All of the elements showed a similar spatial distribution pattern with low contents in the east upland area, and high contents in the middle by the west area, located close to Dongting lake. The long-term practice of using the Xiangjiang river as irrigation water was believed to be the main reason resulting in the enrichment of heavy metals in soils around Dongting lake. In addition, the evaluation results showed that about 45.8, 51.1 and 3.1 % of the study area were classified as slightly, moderately and seriously polluted with Cd, respectively. As for the other seven elements, soil environmental quality was fairly well because of their grades belonging to clean or excellent. By integration of the assessment results for individual elements, it was found that about 3.8 % of the study area was clean, 82.2 % was slightly polluted and 14.1 % was moderately polluted. On the whole, most of the study area was at safe and guarded level. However, appropriate measures still should be adopted to control the levels of heavy metals in agricultural soils. The findings obtained in this study were useful for establishing policies for protecting the local soil environments and guaranteeing the food quality as well as the people’s health.