%0 Journal Article %T Screening of criteria for heavy metals for revision of the National Standard for Soil Environmental Quality of China %A Zhang Haibo %A Luo Yongming %A Li Yuan %A Zhou Qian %A Liu Xinghua %J ACTA PEDOLOGICA SINICA %@ 0564-3929 %V 51 %N 3 %D 2014 %P 429-438 %K Heavy metals; Soil benchmark/standard; Bioavailability; Environmental risk; International investigation %X Soil pollution, in particular, soil heavy metal pollution is a severe problem in China, which has now come to the extent of threatening food security of the nation, for heavy metals accumulate in edible parts of the crops produced in some severely contaminated areas. However the currently used standard for soil environmental quality does not fit the demands of the soil environmental management today, which manifested in the index system is that the number of indices covering heavy metals pollution is limited. So far the standard of China has only eight heavy metals covered, much fewer than that of the USA, Canada, the Netherland etc., which has led to inefficient management of some soil pollution problems popped up recently with the development of economy in China. Therefore, the objective of this study is to find the gaps between China and those developed countries and regions in the establishment of soil standard for heavy metals, and to provide some proposal for the revision of China’s soil environment quality standard in the future. A worldwide investigation has been conducted on the soil environmental standard of those developed counties and regions, such as USA, Candia, the Netherland, Germany, Australia, Japan, Taiwan (China) and so on. The item counts, kinds and species of the heavy metals involved in these soil standards were mainly concerned of. Meanwhile, in depth study and systematic analysis was conducted of indices of heavy metals in the standards for soil environment of some developed countries and regions for comparisons with ours. Similarity and difference were both found based on the comparison. The similarity is that the high toxic elements such as Cd, Hg and As are contained in the soil standards of most countries and regions. The differences are mainly in relation to the speciation of the elements. The hexavalent chromium and organic mercury are contained in the soil standard of some developed countries and regions due to their high toxicities. However, standards of chromium and mercury are simply provided based on the total content in China’s Soil Environmental Quality Standard. Another difference is the usage of extractable speciation in addition to the total content of heavy metals in the standard of some developed countries such as Germany, Switzerland and Japan while not in the standard of China. This could be owing to the large diversity of soil types in China and be difficult to find a common extracting agent for all the soil types. Meanwhile, China has its own characteristics in soil heavy metal pollution, which includes beryllium, antimony, thallium and vanadium pollution as a result of high geochemical background in the calcareous rock soil or some mining areas that mainly located in the south China. These heavy metals pollution have threatened to human health of local residents. On such a basis, suggestions are put forth for revising the current standard of the country, including amendment of the criteria for valences and forms of highly toxic heavy metals, like hexavalent chromium and organic mercury; setting up of criteria for newly emerged heavy metal pollutants, like beryllium, antimony, thallium, vanadium, etc.; and exploration for establishment of a bioavailability-based index system for extractable forms of heavy metals, by taking into account soils or rocks in calcareous regions with high heavy metals background values, so as to provide some scientific basis for management of soil heavy metal pollution risks in China. %R 10.11766/trxb201311010505 %U http://pedologica.issas.ac.cn/trxben/home %1 JIS Version 3.0.0