International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Review Concentrations, Distribution, and Pollution Assessment of Metals in River Sediments in China Guoqi Lian 1,2,3,4,* and Xinqing Lee 1 1 The State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang 550081, China;
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[email protected] 2 College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China 3 School of Chemistry and Materials Engineering, Liupanshui Normal University, Liupanshui 553004, China 4 Guizhou Provincial Key Laboratory of Coal Clean Utilization, Liupanshui 553004, China * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: This study conducted a review on the concentrations, spatial distribution and pollution assessment of metals including As, Hg, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn in 102 river sediments in China between January 2008 and July 2020 based on the online literature. The geo-accumulation index (Igeo) and potential ecological risk index (RI) were used for the pollution assessment of the metals. The results showed that the ranges of metals were: 0.44 to 250.73 mg/kg for As, 0.02 to 8.67 mg/kg for Hg, 0.06 to 40 mg/kg for Cd, 0.81 to 251.58 mg/kg for Co, 4.69 to 460 mg/kg for Cr, 2.13 to 520.42 mg/kg for Cu, 39.76 to 1884 mg/kg for Mn, 1.91 to 203.11 mg/kg for Ni, 1.44 to 1434.25 mg/kg for Pb and 12.76 to 1737.35 mg/kg for Zn, respectively.