Informatics Publishing Limited

Wei Wang ¹, Chenchang Du ¹, Nengcheng Chen ¹, Zeqiang Chen ¹, Xian He ²

Affiliations
1 State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, CN
2 Dalian Academy of Reconnaissance and Mapping Co. Ltd., Dalian, 116061, CN

Abstract

This study evaluated the trace metal sources and their spatial distribution in surface sediments in Chaohu Lake, China, using multivariate statistical analysis and geostatistics. The results of the multivariate statistical analysis, including principal component analysis and cluster analysis, indicated that Cu, Pb and Zn were significantly influenced by anthropogenic sources, whereas, the remaining studied metals mainly originated from natural sources. Ordinary kriging was used to plot the spatial distribution of the trace metals and principal component scores, while indication kriging was applied to generate the probability of the trace metals exceeding their pollution threshold values. We found that natural origins and the grain size effect influenced the spatial distribution of Al, Cr, Fe, Mg, Ni, and V, while human sources combined with the former two factors affected the spatial distribution of Cu, Pb and Zn. The spatial distribution of each principal component scores represented the spatial impact of corresponding component on this lake. The possibility maps show that some areas had a high ecological risk caused by Cu, Pb and Zn. Multivariate statistical analysis and geostatistics are concluded to be effective tools to study trace metals.

Keywords

Trace Metals, Geostatistics, Semivariogram, Multivariate Statistics, Sediment.

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