ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Heavy Metals in the Surface Soil around
a Coalmine: Pollution Assessment
and Source Identification
More details
Hide details
1
School of Resources and Civil Engineering, Suzhou University, Anhui, China
2
National Engineering Research Center of Coal Mine Water Hazard Controlling, Anhui, China
Submission date: 2018-05-04
Final revision date: 2018-07-28
Acceptance date: 2018-08-07
Online publication date: 2019-03-05
Publication date: 2019-04-09
Corresponding author
Sun Linhua
Suzhou University, 49# Bianhe Road, Suzhou City, Anhui Province, China, 234000 Suzhou, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2019;28(4):2717-2724
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Coal mining in northern Anhui Province of China has led to a series of environmental problems.
In this study, a total of 68 surface soil samples around a representative coalmine (the Haizi coalmine)
in the area have been collected and then analyzed for seven kinds of heavy metal concentrations
(Cu, Fe, Zn, Co, Ni, Mn and Pb) for getting information about their pollution degrees and sources.
The results indicate that the metal concentrations are Fe>Mn>Zn>Pb>Cu>Ni>Co, and all of them
have coefficients of variation ranging between 0.13 and 0.75, and low p-values (<0.01) of normal
distribution test except for Fe, Co and Ni, which suggests that their concentrations have been affected
by multiple factors. The single pollution index and geo-accumulation index imply that zinc and lead
are light pollution, and the Nemerow composite index and the potential ecological risk index suggest
that the soils in this study are slightly polluted and with low potential ecological risk. The spatial
distributions of the metal concentrations, along with the statistical analyses (including correlation, cluster
and factor analyses) indicate that all of the metals can be classified to be two groups, the Fe-Co-Mn
and Cu-Zn-Pb-Ni, which mean geogenic and anthropogenic sources, respectively, and their mean
contributions for the heavy metal concentrations in the study area are 57.1% and 42.9%, respectively,
as calculated by the Unmix model.