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Ecological risk assessment and sources of heavy metals in sediment from Daling River basin

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Abstract

To investigate the distribution, source, and ecological risk of heavy metals in Daling River basin, 28 surface sediments collected in this region were analyzed by experimental and theoretical methods. Seven heavy metals, including Pb, Cr, Hg, Cu, As, Cd, and Zn, were detected in all samples. Monte Carlo simulation was used to assess the ecological risks of these heavy metals. It was found that the pollution of Cd was the most serious; the ecological risks in Daling River and Bohai Bay were significantly higher than those in estuary, Bohai Sea, and wetland, but overall, the ecological risks of these heavy metals were low to aquatic organisms in Daling River basin at present. Correlation analysis, principal component analysis, and cluster analysis showed that these heavy metals might originate from the same pollution sources located near Daling River and Bohai Bay.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants from the Institute of Environmental Systems Biology of Dalian Maritime University, National Science & Technology Pillar Program of China in 2010 (2010BAC68B02), and Liaoning Science & Technology Program (2007405010) to Yeqing Sun. Chao Liu from Zhejiang University, Huiling Zhu from Sun Yat-Sen University, and Jie Chen from East China Normal University are thanked for providing the related references.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Correspondence to Dong Mi or Yeqing Sun.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. The following information is found in the Supplementary Material: normal distribution parameters for ln-transformed exposure concentrations of heavy metals in sediments from Daling River basin (see Table S1); normal distribution parameters for ln-transformed RI (see Table S2); potential risk of heavy metals from different sample types in Daling River basin by the Håkanson’s method (see Table S3); total variance and component matrices explained for heavy metals in sediments from Daling River basin (see Table S4); probability distributions for ln-transformed RI (a) and Q-Q plot of ln-transformed RI for normal distribution test (b) (see Fig. S1); and distribution of 28 sample sites predicted using the three-component model with the first component (F1), the second component (F2), and the third component (F3) (see Fig. S2).

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Zhao, L., Mi, D., Chen, Y. et al. Ecological risk assessment and sources of heavy metals in sediment from Daling River basin. Environ Sci Pollut Res 22, 5975–5984 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3770-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-3770-2

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