Potential Ecological Risk Assessment of Soil Heavy Metals in Fengdong New District Based on Information Diffution Model

The large-scale construction of new districts has led to severe soil heavy metal pollution. Therefore，taking Fengdong New District as the target research area，the descriptive statistics of heavy metal content characteristics and Kriging interpolation analysis have been conducted，and the potential ecological risk index and information diffusion theory were further combined to create an information diffusion model based on risk assessment. Finally，the pollution degree，ecological risk，and risk occurrence probability of Pb，Cu，Cd，and Hg were discussed. The findings revealed that the average concentrations of the four heavy metals far exceeded the background value of soil heavy metals by a factor of 1. 943（Pb），1. 419（Cu），3. 074（Cd），and 3. 567（Hg），respectively. Moreover，the distribution of soil heavy metals showed strong variability（CV>65%）owing to human interference. The distribution of Pb and Cu pollution were predominantly influenced by industrial production and land development for construction purposes，whereas industrial activities，agricultural practices，and transportation served as the primary sources of Cd contamination. On the other hand，industrial construction emerged as the major factor contributing to Hg pollution. The average values of individual potential ecological risk index for heavy metals of 9. 716（Pb），7. 095（Cu），92. 292（Cd），and 142. 469（Hg），coupled with the regional comprehensive potential ecological risk index（RI）average of 251. 573，signified that the region was overall characterized by a relatively high potential ecological risk status. The overall potential ecological risk for Pb and Cu in the region were mild，whereas Cd and Hg posed moderate to high risks，indicating that Cd and Hg were the dominant driving factors behind regional heavy metal pollution. The evaluation results of the information diffusion model based on the potential ecological risk indicated that the probability ranking of different levels of comprehensive potential ecological risk was as follows：slightly high（38. 98%）> moderate（38. 55%）> high（5. 89%）> slight（5. 15%）> extremely high（3. 56%）. The exceeding probabilities of potential ecological risk levels for Cd and Hg were significantly higher than those for Pb and Cu. The exceeding probability of different pollution levels of Hg were slight（94. 89%），moderate（66. 85%），slightly high（23. 62%），high（3. 9%），and extremely high（2%），of which only the surpassing probability of the slight level was lower than that of Cd. The prediction error of pollution probability of each potential ecological risk level was less than 5%，demonstrating the reliability of the information diffusion model based on the risk assessment. This research will provide technical reference and support for the monitoring and management of potential ecological risks from soil heavy metals in limited sample data regions. © 2024 Science Press. All rights reserved.