Spatial distribution and sources of soil heavy metals in the outskirts of Yixing City, Jiangsu Province, China

City outskirts serve as the concentration centers for the pollutants discharged from various sources such as industry, agriculture and transportation. With the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, the eco-environment of the city outskirts has become a hot spot of public concern. An analysis was conducted in this paper on the soil in the outskirts of Yixing City using frequency distribution functions. The heavy metal sources in this region had been divided into two components, i.e. natural background component and strong human disturbance component. The corresponding interpretation of the distribution pattern and features of heavy metal elements was presented by spatial analysis. The results showed that the strong human disturbance components of Hg, Pb, and Cu accounted for 36.9%, 26.7%, and 23.3% in their contents respectively, which indicated directly the serious effect of human activities on heavy metal contents. Hg and Pb, because of the human disturbance, showed the greatest spatial variability, and human activities intensified the heterogeneity of the spatial distribution. The anisotropic analysis showed the higher organisation of Hg and Zn in the direction of urban-rural transition, which indicated their spatial characteristics with urban-rural transition. Pb displayed distinctive structure in the vertical direction of urban-rural transition, which was largely controlled by highway distribution. Cu content in paddy fields was significantly higher than those of other land-use-types, and the agricultural non-point source pollution played an important role in the distribution pattern of Cu.