Concentrations and chemical forms of heavy metals in agricultural soil near the world’s largest and oldest tungsten mine located in China

Abstract

Tungsten (W) mining has taken place in Ganzhou in China for about 100 years. Such long-term W mining may release large amount of metals to soils and waters around these mines. Twenty soil samples were taken from the area around the W mines and 10 soil samples from an area much farther away. These soil samples were analysed for physicochemical properties, heavy metal content and their chemical forms. Results show that long-term W mining significantly increased both total and labile contents of Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn, but did not, or only slightly, increased the total content of Co, Cr and Ni in the soil near the mine. Average enrichment factor (EF) in the agricultural soils was 4.0, 2.4, 2.2, and 2.0 for Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn, respectively. The labile fraction was dominated by the carbonate-bound fraction for Cd (54.5%) and organic matter-bound fraction for Cu (37.9%), while the major labile fractions for Pb and Zn were associated with carbonates (30.2% and 6.4%), oxides (17.9% and 10.6%) and organic matter (9.2% and 18.8%). Consequently, there is a need to be cautious about Cd in the soils contaminated by W mining.