Pollution Assessment of Trace Elements in the Soil Planting Chinese Herbaceous Peony in Suzhou, China

Abstract

Planting of the industrial crop is important for the rural revitalization in current China and the geological environment of soil is important for the development of the planting. In this study, twenty-eight surface soil samples in the farmland planting Chinese herbaceous peony in Suzhou have been collected and analysed for the concentrations of trace elements (As, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn along with Fe and Mn). The results indicate that iron is the most abundant element, followed by manganese, zinc, chromium, lead, nickel, copper, arsenic and cobalt. They have coefficients of variation ranged between 0.058 and 0.561, indicating that some of them might have multi-sources. The pollution indexes (including single pollution, geo-accumulation and the Nemerow composite indexes) indicate that the soil samples are no to slightly polluted. Multivariate statistical analyses (including correlation, cluster and factor analyses) have identified two sources (geogenic and agricultural related) responsible for the elemental concentrations in the soils.

Keywords

• pollution assessment, trace elements, farmland soil, chinese herbaceous peony