The Study Of Heavy Metal Pollution In The Sediments & The Potential Ecological Risk In The Flood Diversion Areas Along Huaihe River, Anhui Province

The sediment samples from the flood diversion areas : Mengwa, Qiujiahu, Tangduohu and Jingshanhu along Huaihe River, Anhui Province were collected . The total concentrations and content of diverse chemical phases of the heavy metals ( Pb, Hg, Zn ,Cd, As ) in the sediment samples were analyzed. The potential ecological risk of the five heavy metals was preliminarily evaluated by the Index of Geoaccumulation (Igeo) & the Potential Ecological Risk Index (PER). The results show as following: the concentrations of heavy metals in the sediment samples are generally higher than the background values, There are good positive relationships among the elements in surface sediments evaluated with Kendall's rank correlation analysis. Thus, it is possible that the flood diversion areas have been polluted by the similar pollution resources. Using BCR sequential extraction procedures to analyze the heavy metals speciations, it indicates that the speciations of same kind element have the similar distributions in the flood diversion areas. The main form of Pb, Zn, As were residue phase and the rate of nonresidue phase of Cd were more than 50 percent. The assessment results show that the heavy metal pollution of surface sediment belongs to light-middle degree risk. The main ecological risk factors of the surface sediments are Cd, Hg. They can acquire satisfied assessment results using the Igeo and PER methods together. The ecological and social problems were also discussed, and some opinions were proposed.