Environmental quality and anthropogenic pollution assessment of heavy metals in topsoil of Hebei plain

Abstract：Soil environmental quality assessment is an important prerequisite for understanding its current status and carrying out environmental protection. The authors made an evaluation of environmental quality of heavy metals in topsoil of Hebei plain based on Environmental Quality Standard for Soils (GB15618-1995), and the results show that the quality is excellent, with the area that comes up to the first grade standard being 93.02% and up to the second being 6.62%. Making use of environmental geochemical behaviors of heavy metals, the authors applied enrichment factors to distinguish anthropogenic pollutions of heavy metals from natural anomalies in topsoil of Hebei Plain. It is concluded that the application of the enrichment factors to determining anthropogenic contamination of heavy metals in topsoil is practical. The anthropogenic pollution area of heavy metals is rather larger, but the pollution is mainly insignificant.