Source Apportionment of Agricultural Soil Heavy Metals Based on PMF Model and Multivariate Statistical Analysis

Abstract

The safety of human health and agricultural production depends on quality of farmland soil. Multivariate statistical analysis and positive matrix factorization (PMF) have revealed source apportionment of six heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn) in a farmland soil of Wenzhou, Zhejiang. The results showed significantly enriched Cd, Pb, Zn, and Cu in this area. The results from Pearson’s correlation coefficient and principal component analysis (PCA) methods have identified both natural sources (Cr and Ni) and anthropogenic sources (Cd, Cu, Pb, and Zn). The PMF model in combination with spatial distribution of six heavy metals, have confirmed that Cd and Zn were predominantly from agricultural sources; Cr and Ni were attributed to natural sources; Pb and Zn were originated from mixed sources of transportation and industry. The Cu was derived from atmospheric deposition. The Multivariate statistical method has qualitatively identified pollution sources, and then combined with quantitative calculation of PMF model. The two methods have verified each other, which has improved feasibility of source apportionment results. This study could provide a reference in preventing and controlling soil pollution effectively from source for local authorities.

Keywords:

• Heavy metals
• source apportionment
• multivariate statistical analysis
• PMF model

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Funding information

This work was supported by a grant of Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang province (No. LZ20C160003).

Data availability

The authors confirm that the data and materials supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.

Author contribution

Under the supervision of Liu Dan, Hong Liu performed sample preparation, data analysis, and wrote the first draft. Shazma Anwar reviewed and edited the writing. Liqiang Fang and Linhua Chen managed the project. Weijie Xu and Linlin Xiao carried out sample preparation and experimental operation. Bin Zhong verified the research results. All authors read and contributed to the manuscript.

Animal research

No animals were used in this experiment.

Consent to participate and consent to publish

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.