The chemistry of major cations (Mg2+, Ca2+, Na+, and K+) and anions (HCO3 ?, SO4 2?, and Cl?) in the water of Lake Pumayum Co and its inflow river was studied, revealing the obvious ionic difference among various inflow rivers and the lake. The chemical type of the lake water was Mg2+-Ca2+-HCO3 ?-SO4 2+, but the major ions of the main inflow rivers were Ca2+-Mg2+-HCO3 ?. In the lake inlet of Jiaqu River, the main inflow river, there was significant variance of water chemistry within the depth less than 2 m. However, it was almost homogeneous at other area of the lake. Therefore, with the evidence of distribution of water chemistry and oxygen isotope of lake water, a conclusion can be outlined that Jiaqu River had a distinct effect on the hydrochemistry of the water on the submerged delta, whereas this is not the case for other rivers. The Gibbs plot revealed that the dominant mechanism responsible for controlling chemical compositions of the lake water was rocks weathering in the drainage area. Ion ratios and ternary plots further explored the main processes controlling the water chemistry of the catchment, i.e., carbonate weathering, pyrite weathering, and silicate weathering. The different hydrochemistry characteristics between river water and lake water may result from the CaCO3 precipitation. The findings will benefit the explanation of the environmental significance of carbonate in paleolimnological studies in the lake.

A total of 118 of agricultural soil and 43 of vegetable samples were collected from Dongguan City, Guangdong, China. The spatial distribution, sources, accumulation characteristics and potential risk of heavy metals in the agricultural soils and vegetables were depicted in details by three different approaches, including total contents of eight metal elements in soils and vegetables, GIS maps and multivariate analysis of heavy metals in soils in the study. The results show that there are higher accumulation of heavy metals such as Cu, Zn, Ni, Pb, Cd and Hg in agricultural soils, and the contents of Pb (65.38 mg kg?1) and Hg (0.24 mg kg?1) are 1.82 and 2.82 times of the background contents of the corresponding heavy metals in soils of Guangdong Province, respectively. There are about 3.4% of Cu, 5.9% of Ni, 1.7% of Cd and 28% of Hg in all collected soil samples from all investigated sites which have overran the contents for heavy metals of the China Environmental Quality Standard for Soils (GB15618-1995, Grade Ⅱ). The pollution characteristics of multi-metals in soils are mainly reflected by Hg. There are different sources to eight metal elements in soils, Cu, Zn, Ni, Cr and As are predominantly derived from parent materials, and Pb, Hg and Cd are affected by anthropogenic activities. The spatial distribution shows that the Cu, Zn, Ni, Cr, Pb, As and Hg contents of agricultural soils are high in the west and low in the east, and Cd contents are high in the northwest, southeast and low in the southwest in Dongguan. The ratios of vegetable samples which Ni, Pb and As concentrations higher than the Maximum Levels of Contaminants in Foods (GB2762-2005) are 4.7%, 16.3% and 48.8%, respectively. The order of bio-concentration factors (BCF) of heavy metals in vegetables is Cd > Zn > Cu > As > Ni > Hg > Cr > Pb. It is necessary to focus on potential risk of heavy metals for food safety and human’s health from agricultural soils and vegetables in Dongguan City, Guangdong Province.

The environmental quality of heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cr, As, Hg) in agricultural surface soil of Chongming Island was assessed by national, local and professional standards based on a large scale investigation, in which 28 samples from vegetable plots, 65 samples from paddy fields and 9 samples from watermelon fields were collected from whole island area. Results showed that the average concentration of Pb, Cd, Cr, As and Hg was 21.6 mg·kg^-1 , 0.176 mg·kg^-1, 69.4 mg·kg^-1, 9.209 mg·kg^-1 and 0.128 mg·kg^-1, respectively. Compared with the background value of Shanghai City soil, except for Pb and Cr, all the other heavy metals average concentrations in Chongming Island agricultural surface soil exceeded their corresponding natural-background values. The concentrations of Cd, As and Hg were 33.0%, 1.2% and 26.3% higher than the background value of Shanghai City, respectively. In addition, inverse distance interpolation (IDW) tool of GIS was also applied to study the spatial variation of heavy metals. The results indicated that most of agricultural soil quality was good, and the ratio of ecological, good soil, certified soil and disqualified soil were 1.26%, 97.1%, 1.47% and 0.12%, respectively. About 10.1%, 85.7%, 27.0%, 55.4% and 55.2% soil samples exceeded the Pb, Cd, Cr, As and Hg background value of Shanghai City, respectively. Among these three land use type soils, vegetable soil was most seriously polluted by heavy metals, which is probably related to the over-application of pesticides. The annual deposition fluxes of Pb, Cd, As and Hg were 7736 μg·m^-2·a^-1, 208 μg·m^-2·a^-1, 2238 μg·m^-2·a^-1 and 52.8 μg·m^-2·a^-1, respectively. Crop straw burning was the important source of heavy metals of atmospheric deposition, and atmospheric deposition contributed a lot to heavy metals in agricultural soil in Chongming Island.

Urban soil, forming along with the development of city, has unique properties of soil organic carbon. On the basis of field investigation and laboratory analysis, soil organic carbon (SOC) of Kaifeng city was studied, and the results showed that the characteristics of SOC were different not only among function districts in urban area, but also between urban area and suburbs. The order of SOC in topsoil was industrial district > recreational district > traffic district > cultural/educational district > residential/administrative district. The density of soil organic carbon (SOCD) in both topsoil and profile followed the orders of recreational district > industrial district > traffic district>cultural/educational district > residential/adminis- trative district, and cultural/educational district > traffic district>industrial district>recreational district > administrative/residential district, respectively. SOCD in both topsoil and profile decreased along the transection line from urban area to suburbs and urban area had 2.53-fold more SOCD in topsoil and 1.56-fold more SOCD in profile than suburbs, respectively. SOC decreased with the depth and was mainly distributed within the scope of 0–30 cm. The variances of SOC in urban area were more complicated than that in suburbs.