Enrichment of heavy metals in the inner shelf mud of the East China Sea and its indication to human activity

The Yangtze River Basin, which has a population of 0.4 billion and an economic output accounting for 50% of China׳s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is one of the most developed regions in China. With dramatic developments in the economy, large quantities of pollutants have entered the Yangtze River and have eventually been discharged into the East China Sea (ECS), and then most of them were preserved in the inner shelf coastal mud areas of the ECS. The inner shelf costal mud areas of the ECS, with sedimentation rate ranging from 0.8 cm/a to 1.2 cm/a, are an ideal place to obtain the high-resolution heavy metal record. In this work, two sediment cores collected in the inner shelf of the coastal mud areas of the ECS in 2009 were used to reconstruct historical records of anthropogenic heavy metal input from the Yangtze River Basin. The temporal distribution of enrichment factors (EFs) is in good accordance with social development of Yangtze River Basin. Before the 1930s, the EFs of Pb and Zn are considered as the background level of study area, according to the agricultural country of China in that time. The much higher EFs of Pb and Zn from the 1930s to 1980s were associated with significant improvement of industry of the Yangtze River Basin. After 1983, the dramatical incensement of EFs of Pb and Zn responded to the remarkable economic development of the Yangtze River Basin. Of particular interest, the construction of the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) in 2003 possibly induced a significant increase in the heavy metal levels in the coastal ECS, and the ban on leaded gasoline in China induced a remarkable decrease in Pb levels. Although heavy metal levels have increased since the 1930s, the coastal mud area of the ECS remains under low ecological risk.