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Identification of heavy metal pollutants using multivariate analysis and effects of land uses on their accumulation in urban soils in Beijing, China

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Abstracts

In order to evaluate the current state of the environmental quality of soils in Beijing, we investigated contents of 14 metals in Beijing urban soils inside the 5th ring road by even grids sampling. Statistic analyses were conducted to identify possible heavy metal pollutants, as well as the effects of land uses on their accumulation. Our results revealed that the urban soils in Beijing were contaminated by Cd, Pb, Cu, and Zn. Land uses and urbanization ages affected the accumulation of the four heavy metals in soils significantly. Soils in industrial areas have the highest average Cu and Zn contents, while Pb contents in park areas and Cd in agricultural areas are the highest. The accumulations of Pb and Zn in urban soils increase significantly with sampling plots approaching the city center. And Pb, Cd, and Zn contents in soils in traffic areas also tend to increase in the city center. However, residential areas have the lowest contents of all the four heavy metals.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge financial support provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41030744 and 41173123), the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Science (grant no. KZCX2-YW-422), the Technical Supporting Programs of China (grant no. 2007BAC28B01), and the Special Foundation of State Key Lab of Urban and Regional Ecology.

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Correspondence to Weiping Chen.

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Wang, M., Markert, B., Chen, W. et al. Identification of heavy metal pollutants using multivariate analysis and effects of land uses on their accumulation in urban soils in Beijing, China. Environ Monit Assess 184, 5889–5897 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-011-2388-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-011-2388-9

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