Original Paper
WU Qinghua,MIN Xingling,ZHOU Yongzhang,LU qiang
TROPICAL GEOGRAPHY.
2013, 33(2):
224-230.
The extensive exploitation and overuse of the of resources have resulted in environmental pollution and ecosystem damages in the Pearl River Delta area. The article focuses on the heavy metal contents of mosses in Guangzhou, Zhaoqing and Huaiji, which represent the core area, periphery area and outside area of Pearl River Delta area, respectively. The result shows that the contents of heavy metals of mosses present a gradient distribution, reflecting the fact that the development of industry and transportation increases the emission of heavy metals in the area. The emission of Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr and Cd in Guangzhou is the highest among the three cities, where the average contents of those elements in mosses are 47.64, 68.83, 252.87, 64.20, 1.02 mg/kg,respectively. and that of Huaiji is the lowest, where the average contents are 16.42, 11.80, 97.13, 32.43, and 0.21 mg/kg, respectively. Zhaoqing is situated between Guangzhou and Huaiji, where the average contents are, respectively, 36.34, 40.51, 143.49, 51.29, and 0.64.mg/kg. The difference of the heavy metal contents reflects the difference of their sources. There is a positive correlation among Cd, Pb, Zn and Cu, that shows that they come from the same pollutant source. However, the relative weak correlation between Cr and Cd, Pb, Cu, Zn shows that Cr has different pollutant source. Maybe Cr has low possibility to pollute the atmosphere. When the industrial upgrading of Guangzhou reaches a certain level and the tertiary industry takes up proper proportion, the situation of heavy metal pollution of mosses would remain at a stable and low level.