Spatial distribution, ecological risk assessment, and potential sources of heavy metal(loid)s in surface sediments from the Huai River within the Bengbu section, China

The Huai River is one of the major drinking water resources in Bengbu City of China's eastern Anhui Province. The study focused on extracting information for spatial distributions of heavy metal(loid)s (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, and Zn) based on the contents of pollutants in 20 surface sediments. Geoaccumulation index and Hakanson potential ecological index were used to calculate the ecological risk of sediment environment in this paper. The I (geo) results indicated that the sediments were moderately contaminated by Hg and Pb. The potential ecological risk sequence of the metals was Hg > Cd > Pb > Cu > Ni > Cr > Zn > As. Among the metal(loid)s, Hg was the main source of pollution that contributed similar to 76% towards the potential ecological risk, followed by Cd. Finally, multivariate statistical analysis methods were conducted to identify the potential causes of pollution and provide basis for environment treatment in Bengbu Reach. The results depicted that Pb may be mainly derived from the traffic emission and manufacturing industry, while Hg may be originated from agricultural emissions.