Abstract
Seasonal, Spatial Distribution and Ecological Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals in Surface Sediments from a Watershed Area in Gonghu Bay in Taihu Lake, China
Highlights
Heavy metals are inert in sediment environments and often considered to be conservative pollutants (Lim et al 2008; Guven and Akinci 2013)
The objectives of this paper are (1) to investigate the seasonal and spatial distributions of heavy metals in the surface sediments of a watershed area in Gonghu Bay; (2) to reveal the pollution status caused by heavy metals in surface sediments using the Contamination Factor (CF) and Igeo; and (3) to evaluate heavy metal ecological risks using the ratio of secondary and primary phrase (RSP) approach, which provides a scientific basis for the comprehensive evaluation and pollution regulation of Gonghu Bay
The heavy metal contents decreased in alkaline soil samples when the pH was over 7.5 (Hellweg et al 2005; Kuo et al 2006; Li et al 2009)
Summary
Heavy metals are inert in sediment environments and often considered to be conservative pollutants (Lim et al 2008; Guven and Akinci 2013). Heavy metals in sediment are harmful to lake aquatic ecosystems, in terms of total content and in terms of the geometrical shape of the molecules, which are more relevant to biological toxicity (Förstner 1993; Yang et al 2012). Contamination factor (CF) has been widely used to study the sources and contamination of trace metals in riverine environments (Wedepohl 1995; Pekey et al 2004) Another commonly used criterion to evaluate the heavy metal pollution in sediments is the geo-accumulation index (Igeo) originally introduced by Müller (1969) which determines and defines metal contamination in sediments by comparing current concentrations with pre-industrial levels. We focus on the seasonal and spatial distributions of the total amounts and chemical forms of heavy metals and the pollution assessments for watershed areas. Decayed hydrobiological residues from the previous year are reserved in sediments and new aquatic organisms have not begun to grow in sediments, so the effects of biological activities are still relatively small
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