Heavy metal pollution characteristics and potential ecological risk assessment of soils around three typical antimony mining areas and watersheds in China

Abstract

China is the largest antimony resource globally. The mining and smelting of antimony will inevitably have a significant impact on the surrounding and downstream farmlands of the mining area, Therefore, it is necessary to understand the pollution characteristics of antimony and evaluate its potential environmental risks. In this paper, three typical antimony mining areas were used as research districts to analyze the contents of heavy metals in soils of the mining areas and watersheds. The single-factor pollution index method, Nemerow comprehensive pollution index method, geo-accumulation index method, and potential ecological risk index method were used to comprehensively evaluate the pollution status and ecological risk of heavy metals in soils around the mining areas. The soil around the Lengshuijiang tin mine was polluted by As, Cd, Zn, and Sb, it was a heavily polluted soil and at a high ecological risk level. The arable soil around the Nandan tea mountain antimony mine was polluted by As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Sb, and Zn, and it was a heavily polluted soil with very high ecological risk level. The soil around the Xunyang antimony mine was mainly polluted by Sb and it was a moderately polluted soil with moderate ecological risk level. The results revealed that the overall soil heavy metal levels in the Lengshuijiang mining area and the Nandan mining area were in a high-risk state, most likely due to the mining and smelting of metal ores and the weathering of mineralised rocks. showing a high-potential ecological risk in these mining areas. We expect to provide a scientific basis for the safe utilization of farmland and pollution control around the antimony mining areas and watersheds in China.

Effects of vegetation restoration on distribution characteristics of heavy metals in soil in Karst plateau area of Guizhou

“…This may be ascribed to heavy metals in the soil were absorbed by plants. In previous study ( Qi et al, 2022 ), it was found that the dominant herbaceous plants in native Compositae and Gramineae had strong enrichment and transport ability to heavy metals such as Cd, Cr and Ni. Moreover, the contents of heavy metals in the surface layer of soil were higher than those in 10–20 cm layer.…”

“…Among them, the status of soil heavy metals pollution in karst areas in different land and vegetation cover types appeared in karst areas ( Han et al, 2022 ; Liu et al, 2022 ; Sun et al, 2020 ). Such as natural background, agricultural activity area ( Zhang et al, 2021 ; Han et al, 2012 ; Zeng et al, 2019 ), mining area ( Zhou et al, 2022 ; Zhang et al, 2022 ; Wang et al, 2022b ; Qi et al, 2022 ) has become a major thrust of research. The research content is mainly based on the distribution characteristics of soil heavy metal content or how to reduce the heavy metal content in soil.…”

Heavy metal pollution and risk assessment of tailings in one low-grade copper sulfide mine

“…This method not only considers the influence of concentration and toxicological characteristics of heavy metals in a specific environment, but also eliminates the difference caused by the background value of heavy metals. The calculation formula are as follows (Qi et al, 2022b):…”

Heavy Metals in Soil around a Typical Antimony Mine Area of China: Pollution Characteristics, Land Cover Influence and Source Identification

“…The potential ecological risk index (RI) was used to evaluate the all-round potential ecological risk due to heavy metal accumulation in soils [8,14,26,31,40,45]. The integrated RI is calculated by the following Formulas (3) and ( 4): Table S3 summarized the classification of i r E and RI grades for heavy metal contamination.…”