{"title":"Spatiotemporal distribution patterns and risk characteristics of heavy metal pollutants in the soil of lead–zinc mines","authors":"Jie Cao, Cheng-yu Xie, Zhi-ru Hou","doi":"10.1186/s12302-022-00607-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Background</h3><p>The current soil environmental assessment system is inadequate in terms of the spatiotemporal distribution of heavy metal pollutants. This study employed the numerical simulation technique to predict spatiotemporal distribution patterns of heavy metals within 50 days and to assess the soil risk characteristics of heavy metal pollution near a lead–zinc mine in Hunan Province, China.</p><h3>Results</h3><p>The spatiotemporal distribution results indicate that the soil in the sewage plant and mining areas served as the pollution center, exhibiting a ladder-shaped pollution diffusion trend outward. When the pollution migration time reached 20 days, pollutant migration and changes tended to remain stable, high-pollution areas exhibited no drastic changes within 10 m, and low-pollution and medium-pollution areas revealed obvious changes. Moreover, the low-pollution area width approached 2 m, the depth reached 2 m, the medium-pollution area width was close to 2.5 m, and the depth approached 4 m. The percentage of areas containing lead–zinc mine soil with high to extremely high risks reached 82.88%, and extremely high-risk farmland, mining and residential areas accounted for up to 100%, 95% and 90%, respectively, of the total area. Among the pollution sources, high-risk and extremely high-risk areas in regard to heavy metal Cd accounted for 13.51 and 49.55%, respectively, of the total area.</p><h3>Conclusion</h3><p>This study provides new insights into the migration patterns and risk characteristics of pollutants to address soil environmental assessment system problems.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":54293,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Sciences Europe","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.9000,"publicationDate":"2022-03-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://enveurope.springeropen.com/counter/pdf/10.1186/s12302-022-00607-1","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environmental Sciences Europe","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12302-022-00607-1","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Environmental Science","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Background
The current soil environmental assessment system is inadequate in terms of the spatiotemporal distribution of heavy metal pollutants. This study employed the numerical simulation technique to predict spatiotemporal distribution patterns of heavy metals within 50 days and to assess the soil risk characteristics of heavy metal pollution near a lead–zinc mine in Hunan Province, China.
Results
The spatiotemporal distribution results indicate that the soil in the sewage plant and mining areas served as the pollution center, exhibiting a ladder-shaped pollution diffusion trend outward. When the pollution migration time reached 20 days, pollutant migration and changes tended to remain stable, high-pollution areas exhibited no drastic changes within 10 m, and low-pollution and medium-pollution areas revealed obvious changes. Moreover, the low-pollution area width approached 2 m, the depth reached 2 m, the medium-pollution area width was close to 2.5 m, and the depth approached 4 m. The percentage of areas containing lead–zinc mine soil with high to extremely high risks reached 82.88%, and extremely high-risk farmland, mining and residential areas accounted for up to 100%, 95% and 90%, respectively, of the total area. Among the pollution sources, high-risk and extremely high-risk areas in regard to heavy metal Cd accounted for 13.51 and 49.55%, respectively, of the total area.
Conclusion
This study provides new insights into the migration patterns and risk characteristics of pollutants to address soil environmental assessment system problems.
期刊介绍:
ESEU is an international journal, focusing primarily on Europe, with a broad scope covering all aspects of environmental sciences, including the main topic regulation.
ESEU will discuss the entanglement between environmental sciences and regulation because, in recent years, there have been misunderstandings and even disagreement between stakeholders in these two areas. ESEU will help to improve the comprehension of issues between environmental sciences and regulation.
ESEU will be an outlet from the German-speaking (DACH) countries to Europe and an inlet from Europe to the DACH countries regarding environmental sciences and regulation.
Moreover, ESEU will facilitate the exchange of ideas and interaction between Europe and the DACH countries regarding environmental regulatory issues.
Although Europe is at the center of ESEU, the journal will not exclude the rest of the world, because regulatory issues pertaining to environmental sciences can be fully seen only from a global perspective.