Comprehensive assessment of pollution status, health risks and source apportionment of heavy metals in surface wetland soils of Yellow River Delta using Monte Carlo simulation and positive matrix factorization.

Excessive heavy metals (HMs) exposure in surface soils may cause non-negligible health risks to human beings; however, the potential health risk assessment of HMs in Yellow River Delta wetland (YRDW) soils has rarely been evaluated. In this study, we sampled surface wetland soils from ten typical functional areas in YRDW, assessed the HMs pollution status, evaluated their potential health risks, stimulated their probabilistic distributions of health risks and analyzed their potential source apportionment using Positive matrix factorization and Monte Carlo simulation. Enrichment factor (EF) and geo-accumulation index (I) indicated significant anthropogenic impacts, particularly in oil-contaminated sites, while Sediment Quality Guidelines (SQGs) comparison results suggested potential ecological risks, especially for As and Ni, which were occasionally above threshold effect levels.

Vertical distribution patterns and ecological risk assessment of heavy metal(loid)s pollution in a sediment profile from Bohai Sea.

The sedimentary records of heavy metal(loid)s contamination and their potential risks from the Bohai Sea are still very lacking. In this study, a sediment profile B18 was collected in the Bohai Sea to explore the contamination status and vertical distributions of heavy metal(loid)s as well as their potential risks. The heavy metal(loid)s contents showed an upward increasing trend towards the surface, and the heavy metal(loid)s concentrations in the upper layer are significantly higher than those of the middle layer and bottom layer.