A total of 2 631 soil samples were collected from 10 counties of the Taihu Lake region of North Zhejiang Province,China,in the study to characterize spatial variability and environmental risks of Hg,Cd,Cr,Pb,Cu and As.Results clearly show strong spatial variability of Hg and Cd,suggesting its close relationship with anthropogenic factors.Meanwhile,statistical analysis of the test results indicate that concentrations of the heavy metals in the soils were in the range of the safety values of the national soil quality criteria with the exception of Hg and Cd.Compared with Cd (2.62%) slight in risk,Hg in 10.34% of the soil samples exceeded the environmental safety criteria of the national soil quality standard,suggesting that Hg might be considered as a dominant element causing soil heavy metal pollution in the study area.The disjunctive kriging technique was thus used to quantify the risk of Hg pollution,and revealed that polluted areas were concentrated around cities and towns and industrial plants and mining,suggesting that the pollution is closely related to air-particle deposition as well as discharge of industrial solid waste and urban garbage.The results of this study provide some insight into risk assessment of environmental pollution and decision-making for agriculture and industry.