Distribution and Potential Ecological Risk Assessment of Heavy Metals in Surface Sediments of Xiamen Bay

The present work envisages the potential ecological risk assessment of heavy metals in surface sediments of Xiamen Bay. Based on the survey of the surface sediments in May 2012, the concentrations of heavy metals Cu, Pb, Zn, Cd, Cr, Hg and As in sediments were 1.2 similar to 57.2, 6.7 similar to 76.6, 13.3 similar to 150.0, 0.035 similar to 0.531, 1.48 similar to 92.7, 0.018 similar to 0.164, 1.9 similar to 10.9 mg.kg(-1), respectively. Significant positive correlations were observed amongst the concentrations of Cu, Zn, Hg and As and Total Organic Carbon (TOC). PCA analysis data showed the first three main factors shared 72.70% of the total variance. All stations in the studied area recorded E(i)r < 40 for Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr and As, which were low risk, while Cd reported the highest ecological risk. The results of refractive index (RI) showed that 40.9% of stations in the Xiamen Bay were at a low risk, 45.5% of them were at a moderate risk, while 13.6% were at high ecological risk.