Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 212 (2021) 111944

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Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoenv

Exploration of the variations and relationships between trace metal

enrichment in dust and ecological risks associated with rapid
urban expansion
Liwen Chen a, Hua Zhang a, b, *, Mingjun Ding a, b, *, Adam Thomas Devlin a, b, Peng Wang a, b,
Minghua Nie a, b, Kun Xie a, c
a
School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
b
Key Lab of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Ministry of Education, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
c
Department of Special Education, Yuzhang Normal University, Nanchang 330103, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Edited by: Dr. Caterina Faggio Trace metals in street dust originate from many natural and anthropogenic sources and may directly or indirectly
affect daily life and health. Here, the enrichment factor (EF), an efficient parameter to assess the contamination
Keywords: by trace metals, was evaluated and compared in four different zones of the urban area of Nanchang city during
Trace metal contaminations different seasons. Results showed that EFs of trace metals have regional seasonal variations. The EF range of Cr,
Street dust
Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd and Pb were found to be (0.76–16.38), (0.66–9.06), (1.09–169.58), (1.52–36.16), (0.44–7.17),
Enrichment factor
(2.07–78.38), (0.95–20.94), respectively. These values indicate minimal to significant pollution. The EF values of
Ecological risk index
Urban area Zn, Cd and Pb in street dust show very similar variations as their median and mean values of EF are higher in
certain zones, and their seasonal variations are similar. The Ni and As results suggest that anthropogenic in­
fluences for these elements are not significant. The Ni may be influenced by land use type rather than point
sources and As may be attributed to natural sources. The Principal Component Absolute Scores - Multivariate
Linear Regression (PCAS-MLR) model was used to identify the types and contributions of trace metal sources. The
main sources of trace metals in dust were found to be industrial discharges and traffic emissions. However, the
percentages of their contributions have significant regional differences. The relationship between the EF of trace
metals and the ecological risk index (ERI) was also investigated, and indicates that seriously polluted areas
correspond to high ERI regions. The land use types and characteristics of the source jointly affects the rela­
tionship between EFs and ERI.

1. Introduction recent research focus due to rapid industrialization and urbanization

The urban atmosphere is a complicated system composed of gaseous
and particulate material. Atmospheric matter, such as trace metals,
organic compounds and other complex compounds can originate from
thousands of possible sources (Charlesworth and Lees, 1999). Both
natural and anthropogenic sources contribute to this mixture, including
windblown soil, transportation sources, industrial processes, etc.
(Cooper and Watson, 1980). Trace metal pollution has caused increasing
concern worldwide because they are toxic and readily bio-accumulated
and transferred through food chains even at low concentration levels
(Zhang et al., 2016), with possible implications to human health (Cal­
abrese and Stanek, 1991). Trace metals from street dust is a critical
(Men et al., 2018; Hou et al., 2019; Zhao et al., 2019), as increased
activities may increase concentration ranges and accumulation of trace
metal in urban street dust (Trujillo González et al., 2016). In addition,
the resuspension of street dust can cause serious secondary pollution
hazards (Charlesworth and Lees, 1999).
Pollution status and source identification of trace metals are thus a
critical concern. To evaluate the pollution status and risks caused by
trace metals, many previous methods have been applied (Wei and Yang,
2010), such as enrichment factors (EF) (Zhang et al., 2012; Keshavarzi
et al., 2015), geo-accumulation indexes (Igeo) (Loska and Cebula,1997;
Cevik et al., 2009; Ghrefat and Abu-Rukah, 2011), element pollution
indexes (PI) (Bai et al., 2010) and hazard indexes (HI) (EPA, 2009;

* Corresponding authors at: School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, China
E-mail addresses: zhangh2013@jxnu.edu.cn (H. Zhang), dingmj@jxnu.edu.cn (M. Ding).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2021.111944
Received 29 October 2020; Received in revised form 8 January 2021; Accepted 13 January 2021
Available online 30 January 2021
0147-6513/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
L. Chen et al.
Zheng et al., 2010; Zhuang et al., 2016). Most studies concerned with
trace metal sources focus on substance composition (Zheng et al., 2016)
and qualitative and quantitative analysis (Li et al., 2019). Receptor
oriented models are commonly used to perform source analysis of at­
mospheric particulate matters, including Chemical Mass Balance (CMB),
Factor Analysis (FA), Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF), isotopic
analysis (Souto-Oliveira et al., 2019), Principal Component Absolute
Scores - Multivariate Linear Regression (PCAS-MLR) methods, and GIS
techniques (Teran et al., 2020). In these approaches, the concentration
contribution of each pollution source attributed to each sample can be
calculated, and the pollution source can be analyzed quantitatively. In
particular, the PCAS-MLR method has been widely applied in the field of
atmospheric science (Bruno et al., 2001; Song et al., 2006; Qu et al.,
2018).
Rapid urbanization has resulted in serious trace metal contamina­
tions in urban environments, including air (Hou et al., 2019; Zhao et al.,
2019), water (Zhang et al., 2018; Meng et al., 2018), and soil (Zheng
et al., 2016; Zhuang et al., 2016). Defining and understanding the pro­
cess of urban expansion is a complicated issue. Previous studies often
divided the core area, the transition area and the suburbs artificially.
However, this kind of division cannot adequately reflect the process of
urban expansion, owing to the irregular nature of urban development
and sprawl. Urban expansion usually occurs in spots or patches, and
often changes the original land use structure. The change of land use
structure might greatly change the enrichment of trace metals in
different media. Previous studies also did not explore the effects of land
use structure changes on multi-medium enrichment of trace metals
during urban expansion.
In our study, we make two hypotheses. First, the enrichment of trace
metals in street dust shows a significant decline with urban expansion.
An area that was urbanized earlier has more intensive human activities,
Fig. 1. Study area and sampling locations, (a) displays the boundary line of China; (b) shows Nanchang city and nearby Poyang Lake; (c) is our study area divided
into zone O (before the year 1983), zone S (1983–2000), zone R (2000–2005) and zone N (2005–2014), which indicates the expansion of urban area by color.(For
interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
2
Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 212 (2021) 111944
more vehicle traffic and more building related pollution. Second, the
land use structure characteristics of different expansion areas can indi­
cate the enrichment of trace metals in dust. With these assumptions, our
study is carried out as follows: (1) Using remote sensing images taken
during different time periods, different stages of urban expansion in
Nanchang City are divided, and their effects on the enrichment of trace
metals in dust are discussed; (2) The concentrations of trace metals and
their level of enrichment in the urban area of Nanchang are evaluated;
(3) The relationship between the ecological risk of land use type during
different expansion stages and the enrichment of trace metals in dust is
investigated.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area
Nanchang city (28◦ 09′ ~29◦ 11′ N, 115◦ 27′ ~116◦ 35′ E), the capital of
Jiangxi Province, is situated in Eastern China (Fig. 1) and covers an area
of 7432.17 km2 with a population of 5.55 million. Nanchang is typical of
many rapidly developing cities in China. It has characteristic of sub­
tropical humid monsoon climate with a mean annual temperature of
17.4 ◦ C and a mean annual rainfall of 1650 mm. The mean wind speed in
this city is 2.3 m/s, and the prevailing wind in summer comes from
southwest and the main wind direction in winter is from the northeast
(Zhao et al., 2019).
In our study, we choose a region that covers the urban areas of the
city. All the sampling stations that measure trace metal contents of street
dust are located on main urban roads. The center areas, zone O and zone
S, are mainly located to the east of Ganjiang River which divides Nan­
chang city. Zone R has a homogeneous west-east distribution and in­
cludes the outer suburbs. Zone N is located in the eastern part of the city.
L. Chen et al.
More details about the division of the urban expansion area and zone
definitions are given in the following Section.
2.2. Land use data and definition of different zones in urban area
The land use data comes from visual interpretation of Landsat images
with resolutions of 30 m × 30 m. Visual interpretation is based on
spectral signature, geological characteristics and translator experience
to interpret land use type from brightness, tone, position, size, texture
and other characteristics of Landsat images. Six land use types of Nan­
chang are classified: forest, grassland, farmland, water, constructed land
and unused land. A total of 347 random sampling sites were chosen for
precision testing. The results show that the accuracy of the land use data
is 95.10%. Based on the availability of data, we chose four years 1983,
2000, 2005 and 2014 to indicate the expansion of urban area in different
periods in Nanchang based on economic policy of the government. Over
the last 30 years, the urban area of Nanchang has expanded rapidly and
can be divided into four areas depending on the expansion speed
(Table S1).
The oldest urban center area of 128.5 km2 was built before 1983. An
area of slow expansion covering 185.8 km2 occurred between 1983 and
2000. There was only a 57.3 km2 increase over these 17 years. An area of
rapid expansion happened during 2000–2005 with a constructed land
area of 358.1 km2. The newly expanded area was built between 2005
and 2014 with a total constructed land area of 481.2 km2. The speed of
urban area expansion is related to economic conditions in the city,
which led to different social functional area distribution and generation
of different trace metals. These four areas have different traffic pressure,
and they have different anthropogenic sources of trace metals. There are
also different landscape structures in these areas which affect the
ecological risk index. In order to distinguish these four areas, we denote
them as zone O (oldest), S (slow), R (rapid) and N (new) for urban area
before 1983, 1983–2000, 2000–2005 and 2005–2014, respectively.
2.3. Sample collection and chemical analysis
A total of 208 street dust samples taken from 104 selected locations
(the red points in Fig. 1) were collected in July and December of 2015.
There are 37 sampling locations in the center urban zone O and 21, 31
and 17 sampling points in zone S, zone R and zone N, respectively.
All dust samples were collected using a clean plastic dustpan and
brush. The samples were dried at 120 ◦ C and sieved through nylon sieve
to extract particles with diameters of less than 63 µm (Mckenzie et al.,
2008), as these particles can be considered to be mainly from atmo­
spheric deposition transported by resuspension (Tanner et al., 2008; Hu
et al., 2011). The experiments were performed under strict quality
control. All of the plastic vessels were cleaned by soaking in 10% HNO3
before the experiments and reagents used were rated grade AR or better
(Harrison et al., 1981). The total particles extracted were then dissolved
in an HNO3-HF-HCl solution in a Teflon beaker and diluted for analysis
(Zhang et al., 2018). The total concentrations of trace metals Cr, Ni, Cu,
Zn, As, Cd and Pb in the diluted solutions were measured by Inductively
Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS, Thermo X series II, USA).
Standard reference materials (Geochemical Standard Soil GSS-5, GSS-9)
were used for quality guarantee and control. The recoveries ranged from
89% to 118% for all elements. The parallel sample of each location was
also analyzed, and the standard deviation was within 5%.
2.4. Data processing and analysis
2.4.1. Pollution assessment methodology
The Enrichment Factor (EF) is a useful parameter to quantify trace
metal elements in sediment or street dust because its degree of pertur­
bation can differentiate natural and anthropogenic sources (Chen et al.,
2007; Kamani et al., 2015). The EF of each element is a normalization of
the element of interest against a reference element like iron, aluminum
3
Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 212 (2021) 111944
and titanium which have been deemed as neither likely to be affected by
anthropogenic activities nor correlated with heavy metal pollutants
(Keshavarzi et al., 2015). The EFs are calculated using the following
equation:
(MC)sample
EF = M (1)
( C )background
Where, Msample is the concentration of the element studied in the street
dust samples, and Csample is the concentration of the reference element in
the sample. Mbackground is the concentration of the same element in the
background sample and Cbackground is the concentration of reference
element in the background sample. In our study, the background con­
centrations in surface soil were chosen following He and Xu (2005).
Titanium (Ti) was chosen as the reference element in this study, which is
hypothesized to originate completely from crustal materials. Ti is a high
concentration element in the lithosphere as well as Fe which are widely
applied as geochemical normalized elements. Furthermore, Ti has been
proved to be more reasonable as there is no obvious anthropogenic in­
fluence (Chen et al., 2016; Mao et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2020).
The EF for each trace metal could be categorized into five levels of
pollution. EF <2 represents zero or minimal enrichment, suggestive of
zero or minimal pollution; 2 ≤EF< 5 indicates moderate pollution;
5 ≤EF< 20 indicates significant pollution; 20 ≤EF<40 indicates strong
pollution and EF ≥40 indicates extreme pollution (Zhang et al., 2012;
Keshavarzi et al., 2015).
2.4.2. Ecological risk assessment methodology
The ERI has been successfully applied in previous research on
ecological risk depending on land use type (Liu et al., 2012; Xie et al.,
2013; Wang et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2017). The ERI can express the
exposure risk to biotic populations and ecological systems. Its compo­
nents originate from the natural environment and from anthropogenic
activities (Xu et al., 2016). In our study, a modified ERI was used to
express the specific potential ecological risk related to the land use type
(Yang et al., 2010; Ye and Feng, 2013; Xu et al., 2016) using the
following equation:
∑
N
Aki Wi
ERI k = (2)
Ak
i=1
Where ERI is the ecological risk index, N is the number of landscape
types in each small grid area k, Aki is the area of the ith landscape type in
the kth area, Ak is the total area of the kth area and Wi is the weight of
ecological risk intensity.
In order to obtain the spatial distribution of the ERI, a fishnet grid
(500 m × 500 m) was created by ArcGIS 10.3, and the land use data is
divided by this fishnet. Aki and Ak are calculated by Fragstats3.3 which is
used to compute the landscape indices. The Wi are 0.32, 0.12, 0.16, 0.53,
0.85 and 0.82, which correspond to farming land, forest, grassland,
water, constructed land and unused land, respectively (Yang et al., 2010;
Ye and Feng, 2013). Results of a IDW (Inverse Distance Weighted)
interpolation in ArcGIS 10.3 were chosen to make the spatial distribu­
tion map of ERI.
2.4.3. Statistical analysis
Multivariate analysis, for example, principal component analysis
(PCA) and correlation analysis (CA), are effective tools for source
identification of trace metals. Here, the SPSS 22.0 software package was
used for the source analysis. The factors were extracted by principal
component analysis and rotated by a varimax technique. The mean,
standard deviation and range of trace metal concentrations were
calculated to obtain basic multiple matrices. The principal component
score, component score coefficient, total concentration of trace metals in
each sampling location, and regression coefficients were calculated as
intermediate variables. The validity of the PCA was determined by
L. Chen et al. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 212 (2021) 111944

Table 1
Trace metal concentrations of street dust measured in this study and background concentrations of these trace metals in Nanchang, along with comparisons of trace
metals in street dust in other urban areas of major cities in China and other countries.
Locations Concentration (mg/kg) Reference
Ti Cr Ni Cu Zn As Cd Pb

Nanchang, China Min 2052.9 46.1 12.7 21.0 94.3 5.7 0.2 33.0 This study
Average 3277.9 112.5 28.1 101.3 277.2 10.1 1.0 89.5
SD 572.3 66.1 12.8 195.4 162.8 5.8 0.8 67.9
CV 0.17 0.59 0.46 1.93 0.59 0.57 0.80 0.76
Median 3178.9 96.6 25.0 74.1 245.7 8.4 0.7 70.8
Max 5414.6 669.9 133.5 2772.2 1479.0 63.6 6.1 506.8
Background of Nanchang Local soil reference 4400.0 60.7 21.0 20.1 64.4 11.1 0.1 29.6 (He and Xu, 2005)
Average of capitals, China Local soil reference 4328.0 73.0 29.0 24.0 68.0 10.0 0.1 23.0 (Cheng et al., 2014)
Nanjing Min 2300 53 18 13 52 na na 21 (Liu et al., 2014)
Average 3900 139 46 274 289 na na 103
Max 5500 391 158 4237 720 na na 832
Wuhan Min na 54.4 19.8 37.7 136.0 na na 60.3 (Yang et al., 2010)
Average na 75.3 27.7 62.1 224.2 na na 102.6
Max na 103.0 45.7 125.0 355.0 na na 265.0
Villavicencio, Colombia Min na 4.7 3.0 13.6 85.6 na na 17.5 (Trujillo Gonzálezet al., 2016)
Average na 25.6 22.3 213.4 209.7 na na 467.6
Max na 115.3 123.3 903.0 511.8 na na 4079.8
Venice, Italy Min 2270 362 72 820 969 na 1.8 529 (Valotto et al., 2015)
Average 3210 959 113 1814 1495 7 2.7 678
Median 3318 884 108 1768 1370 6 2.5 652
Max 3700 2200 168 3570 2800 16 5.2 980

na – not available.

Fig. 2. Boxplots of enrichment factors (EFs) of trace metals in street dust of summer and winter in zone O, zone S, zone R and zone N in Nanchang city. The solid line
shows the trend of median values from zone O to zone N. Plots (a) to (g) show EFs of Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd and Pb, respectively. The (A-C)1 and (A-C)2 indicates the
statistical discrepancy of each of the four zones in summer and winter. The a and b express the seasonal variation in each zone.

4
L. Chen et al.
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) values (> 0.5) (Zhang et al., 2020) and all
analyses were based on a significance level of P < 0.05. The Absolute
Principal Component Scores - Multivariate Linear Regression
(APCS-MLR) was used to explore the origins of trace metals, which ob­
tains the score of absolute principal component factor from factor
analysis, and then performs multiple linear regression on the receptor.
The regression coefficient was used to calculate the contribution of the
corresponding emission source of each factor to the substance in the
receptor. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to observe
significant differences between the EFs of trace metals in multiple zones
and independent sample t-tests were chosen to observe difference of EFs
between summer and winter. The CA was used to express the relation­
ship between the origins of these elements and the linear regression
model was used to obtain the relationship between ERI values and EF
values. Graphic expressions were realized using the ArcGIS 10.3 and
Sigmaplot 12 software.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Pollution assessment of trace metals in street dust
The chemical analysis results for trace metal concentration in street
dust are listed in Table 1 and compared with the local background values
in Nanchang city and background values in China. The local background
values in Nanchang city were selected from (He and Xu, 2005), which
can show elementary composition of surface soil at a depth of less than
20 cm. Background values of trace metal(loid)s in China are also given,
which come from median values of 31 surface soil samples taken from
capital cities throughout China (Cheng et al., 2014). Compared to
background values of China, the background values of Cr, Ni, Cu and Zn
in Nanchang are slightly lower, while Pb is significantly higher and Ti
and As are slightly higher.
As shown in Table 1, the medians, means and standard deviations of
Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb are clearly higher than local background
values. This result suggests a significant influence of anthropogenic
sources on these trace metals concentrations (Al-Khashman, 2007; Wang
et al., 2008). The concentrations of As and the background reference
element Ti are unclear. Compared with other cities, Nanchang is not
seriously polluted. Nanjing is also a provincial capital and a rapidly
expanding city, similar to Nanchang. However, the concentrations of Cr,
Ni, Cu, Zn and Pb in Nanjing are higher than in Nanchang. The high
coefficient of variation (CV) of these elements indicate a stronger
anthropogenic influence (Liu et al., 2013; Luo et al., 2019). In our study,
the CV of Cu is 1.93, indicating that it is likely related to intense
anthropogenic activities. Other elements whose CVs are less than 1
indicate being less related to anthropogenic activities.
In order to assess the contamination of these trace metals in different
zones, the EF was calculated, with results shown in Fig. 2. Most areas are
experiencing minimal pollution to significant pollution from trace
metals in street dust. The EF range of Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd and Pb are
(0.76–16.38), (0.66–9.06), (1.09–169.58), (1.52–36.16), (0.44–7.17),
(2.07–78.38), (0.95–20.94), respectively. The mean EF of Cd (12.08), Cu
(6.69), Zn (6.07), Pb (4.22), Cr (2.61) are higher than 2, illustrating that
those trace metals in dust originate from anthropogenic sources (Han
et al., 2006). The mean EF of Ni and As are less than 2, suggesting that
the anthropogenic influence of Ni and As are not significant (Keshavarzi
et al., 2015). Although the mean EFs are less than 20, some stations
observed strong pollution. For example, the EFs of Cu, Zn and Cd are
considerably higher than 30 in zone S and zone R. These significant
higher EF values should be taken into consideration for the purposes of
maintaining a healthy environment.
The EF shows obvious regional diversities and seasonal variations. In
zone O, the EF of Zn has maximum median values of 6.59 in summer and
7.06 in winter and the EFs of Zn are more than 5 both in summer and
winter in zone R (Fig. 2(d)). The EF values of Zn, Cd and Pb in street dust
show very similar variations as their median and mean values are all
5
Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 212 (2021) 111944
higher in zone O and zone R than in zone S and zone N. This kind of
distribution points to possible common sources of trace metals (Chen
and Lu, 2017).
The EF of Ni clearly decreases from zone O to zone N, and its median
value in summer and winter are very similar in every zone. The mean EF
value of Ni decreases from 2.32 to 1.44 in summer and from 2.51 to 1.56
in winter. This result shows that the EF of Ni is more than 2 only in zone
O, which suggests that this area has moderate pollution by Ni, but other
areas are not affected significantly by Ni. The EF value of As changes
little in all zones; Only in zone N the value is a bit lower than other
zones. Compared with other trace metals, As is the only trace metal
whose EF values are all lower than 2 in all zones, indicating there is
insignificant or minimal pollution. Though we assumed that the
enrichment of trace metals in street dust has a significant decline as the
urban area expands, the EF values of Ni and As show no apparent trend
of decline. This also suggests that Ni and As may not result from
anthropogenic activities.
For Cr, there is no obvious change in zone S, zone R and zone N.
However, its mean EF values in all zones are higher than 2 and its
maximum mean value of each zone is 3.41 in zone O. This suggests that
Cr in dust is less affected by anthropogenic activities and its anthropo­
genic source of pollution is mainly located in zone O. Cu is a common
trace metal pollutant. Here, we find that the mean EF values of Cu are all
more than 5 from zone O to zone R and is 3.99 in zone N. It shows no
obvious variation between these zones and the mean values indicate
significant pollution in zone O to zone R and moderate pollution in zone
N. The EF of Cu does not decline as the urban area expands from zone O
to zone N, suggesting that Cu is mainly unaffected by land use type
changes and may mainly come from point sources.
The trend of EFs for all trace metals is similar in that all the mean
values are higher in winter than in summer. The movement of air is
likely the main factor affecting the movement of atmospheric particu­
lates and the thermal inversion layer has important influence on the
increase of pollution in winter (Li and Zhang, 2015). The air pollution in
Nanchang has obvious seasonal variations which is shown by mean
values and median values of these trace metals. The most frequent oc­
currences of polluted days are in winter, and are rare in summer, due to
the erosional dilution by increased precipitation in summer and thermal
inversion layering in winter of Nanchang (Liu, 2013). However, Fig. 2
shows that seasonal effects in winter cannot cause significant differences
of the EFs of trace metals between different seasons.
3.2. Source identification and quantification
In general, the trace metals in street dust mainly originate from
natural alluviation and sedimentation (Zhang et al., 2016). However,
anthropogenic processes might change the composition of soil, water,
plants and other factors, which may subsequently change the composi­
tion of street dust (Li et al., 2019). Traffic emissions and industrial ac­
tivities are determined to be two main sources of trace metal pollution in
street dust (Hou et al., 2019). The EF results of Ni and As show that they
are not significantly affected by anthropogenic activities, which implies
that Ni and As concentrations are unaffected by point sources of pollu­
tion such as industrial discharges and traffic emissions. To better iden­
tify sources of trace metal contaminants, the APCS-MLR model was used.
Spatially, the total concentrations of trace metals are related to in­
dustrial and residential areas as well as traffic movements, numbers of
vehicles and their speed (Charlesworth, 2003). Pb is a reliable tracer of
traffic emissions (Johansson et al., 2009; Zhao et al., 2019). The
traffic-related deposition of particles may come from vehicle exhaust,
lubricating oil residues, tire wear particles, brake lining wear particles,
etc. Copper and zinc in particular are complex in urban sourcing, and
they may also largely be sourced from break or tire wear (Davis et al.,
2001). Alternatively, Cu, Zn and Cd in street dust might be directly or
indirectly released from industrial activities such as metal processing,
smelting and incineration of wastes (Charlesworth and Lees, 1999;
L. Chen et al.
Fig. 3. Source contributions to trace metal EFs in street dust in each zone as determined by the PCAS-MLR model.
Charlesworth, 2003; Zhao et al., 2019). Therefore, we can define these
elements as two main sources: industrial discharges and traffic
emissions.
Table S2 shows the reliability of the model results. E/O is the ratio of
the estimated value (E) and observed value (O). The E/O values are all
very close to one, indicated a high success rate of the model. All R2 are
higher than 0.7 and all have significance of P < 0.05 (Tong, 2012). It can
thus be assumed that the source contribution results are precise and
reliable.
The mean percentages of traffic emission sources for Cr, Cu, Zn, Cd
and Pb are 4.03%,4.40%, 29.65%, 45.93% and 62.28%, respectively.
The mean percentages of major industrial discharge sources for these
trace metals are 87.22%, 69.02%, 61.55%, 53.35% and 37.72%,
respectively. The mean percentage of unknown sources is 5.69%
(Table S3). Our results are consistent with Zhao et al. (2019), who re­
ported that Pb is mainly from vehicular traffic and industrial emissions,
with contribution rates of 61% and 26%, respectively.
Fig. 3 shows sources with different contribution ratios to trace metal
concentrations in street dust in each zone. It can be seen that all zones
have similar sources except zone R. This result may be related to their
different land use types (Xia et al., 2011; Kamani et al., 2015).
The land use types of each zone have different components, different
levels and different types of anthropogenic activities. From 1983–2014,
grassland and farmland decline year to year. According to Fig. 1, con­
structed land is more widespread from zone O to zone N. The trace
metals in zone O, zone S and zone N primarily come from industrial
discharges, especially in zone S, which might be attributed to local in­
dustrial zones. Individual trace metal concentrations are slightly
different in response to the proximity of main roads, green spaces and
other positions of different land use types (Charlesworth, 2003).
In zone O, crowds and numerous vehicles lead to the highest per­
centage of traffic emissions for Pb and Cd. A majority of factories in
Nanchang are located in zone S and zone R, and high concentrations of
6
Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 212 (2021) 111944
Cd are observed here. For other elements in zone R, the source contri­
bution of Cu and Zn are more complex than other elements, which
demonstrates the existence of multiple sources. Cr and Cd mainly orig­
inate from industrial discharge. Zn mainly comes from traffic emissions
and Pb is half attributed to industry and half to traffic sources. The major
source contribution of zone N also has a similar trend as zone O and zone
S.
Compared to the other three zones, zone R shows apparent differ­
ences in source contributions of trace metals. There are multiple sources
in this zone, which shows that there are special sources of Cu and Zn
with contributions of 46.03% and 5.65%. As this source has no influence
on Cd or Pb, it illustrates that this kind of source is different from traffic
or industry. It is also clear that Cu presents the highest contribution ratio
as compared to the other zones, suggesting that this kind of pollution
may come from different anthropogenic sources.
The proportion of Cu present in different areas can vary consider­
ably, as it is dominated by many kinds of sources, such as electronics,
waste, metallurgical industries, etc. (Charlesworth and Lees, 1999;
Tokalıoğlu and Kartal, 2006). Copper and zinc can be attributed to
another source, waste processing, which differs from other trace metals
(Charlesworth and Lees, 1999). In the principal component analysis, Cu
has a high percentage, Zn has a small percentage, and other elements
have near zero contribution in Zone R. Many of the waste treatment
plants of Nanchang are located in zone R, so the third source of pol­
lutants in zone R is likely related to waste processing.
3.3. Spatial correlation between ecological risk index and enrichment
factor
There are several anthropogenic and environmental factors that can
influence the total contents of trace metals, such as land use type (Zhang
et al., 2017). The EF can only reflect the influence of human activities on
the enrichment of a single trace metal and does not consider the
L. Chen et al. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 212 (2021) 111944

Table 2 extremely high risk level. In total, more than 66% of the area is at a
Ecological risk index grade classification and the percentages of each grade in medium or higher risk level.
the Nanchang urban area. Table S4 shows that the ecological risk decreases gradually from
ERI value Ecological risk grade Percentage % zone O to zone N. The distribution characteristic is consistent with
<0.35 Extremely low risk 15.22
previous literatures (An et al., 2011; Xiao and Tian, 2014) and supports
0.35–0.5 Low risk 17.79 our hypothesis. This depends on land use types and their ecological risk
0.5–0.65 Medium risk 26.05 intensity. In zone N, where their land use types are multiple and com­
0.65–0.8 Slightly high risk 24.72 plex, the ERI values are significantly lower, at 0.667. On the contrary, in
0.8–0.95 High risk 16.20
many grid cells in the city center (zone O), there is only one kind of land
> 0.95 Extremely high risk 0.03
use type, constructed land, which leads to the highest ecological risk and
an ERI value is of 0.734. Consequently, the outer zone (zone N) usually
bioavailability or combined effects of trace metals (Wang et al., 2015). has a lower ERI value than other zones which have higher degree of
Therefore, based on the land use types, the ecological risk index (ERI) urbanization.
was applied to further assess the ecological risk in urban area of Land use type is an important factor which can affect environmental
Nanchang. pollution, and different types of land use can lead to different concen­
To assess the ERI in our study area, the method of grid computing trations of trace metals in dust. It is suggested that multiple landscape
was used. Six levels of ecological risk grades were classified depending features may lead to more complex trace metal diffusion. The relation­
on the ERI value in Table S4, including extremely low risk, low risk, ship between the spatial distribution of ERI and the enrichment factor of
medium risk, slightly high risk, high risk and extremely high risk (Yang trace metals was investigated, and results are displayed in Fig. 4. The
et al., 2010; Ye and Feng, 2013; Xu et al., 2016). The ERI value was distribution of Cr, Ni, Cu and Zn reveals that high values of EF are
obtained based on the land use data. The minimum and maximum mainly distributed in the center area zone O where the ERI values also
values of ERI are 0.01 and 1.46, respectively. Based on the mean value of show slightly high risk or high risk levels. However, As, Cd and Pb have
0.57 with a standard deviation of 0.15, a grading standard was estab­ higher values of EF in the southeastern sampling stations in zone S and
lished, shown in Table 2. We assign the mean value at the middle point zone R and lower values of EF are distributed in zone N which has more
of the medium risk classification, then we made an equal spacing clas­ complex landscape type than zone O. The sampling stations located in
sification to determine the percentage of each grade in the urban area of peripheral regions, such as the far western region, which is surrounded
Nanchang city. The spatial distribution map of ERI in urban area is by middle or low ecological risk regions, and demonstrates low values of
shown in Fig. 4(h). EF for all trace metal elements. This suggests that there is clear spatial
More than 50% of the ERI values are in range of 0.5–0.8, suggesting relation between EF and ERI of trace metal contamination. More com­
that more than half of this area is at a medium risk or slightly high risk plex landscape structure and land use type suggest lower ecological risks
level. 33% of the urban area is at extremely low risk or low risk levels as and trace metal pollution.
these areas are far from the city center. However, 16.2% of the urban The adverse effects that an unforeseen accident or disaster may have
area is exposed to high ecological risk, and 0.03% of the urban area is at on the ecosystem and its components, including damage to the structure

Fig. 4. Spatial distribution of ecological risk index and the mean enrichment factor of trace metals of each sampling station in summer and winter. (a) to (g) show
spatial differences of the enrichment factor of trace metals Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd and Pb, respectively. (h) shows the spatial distribution of ERI, and it is the
background of (a) to (g).

7
L. Chen et al.
Fig. 5. The relationship between ecological risk index and enrichment factors. (a) to (g) show Cr, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd and Pb results, respectively.
and function of the ecosystem, are referred to as ecological risks, which
may endanger the safety and health of the ecosystem. With increases of
urban population and acceleration of urbanization, ecological risks will
also increase. The value of ERI is directly related to the percentage of
land use type; A zone that has more constructed land and unused land
whose ecological intensities are higher will have a higher ERI, and green
areas will have a lower ERI. In Fig. 5, the relationship between the ERI
value and EF of trace metals in zone O, S, R and N are displayed, and the
R2 vales of Cr, Ni and Zn are 0.932, 0.980 and 0.865, respectively. This
suggests that the EF of Cr, Ni and Zn are closely related to ERI variations
and are consistent with the spatial distribution. Unlike these elements,
no obvious correlation was found between the Cu, As, Cd, Pb and ERI. It
suggests that the pollutants come from point sources or may not be
related to ERI. Common sources of Cr are the wear of metallic parts and
chrome accessories (Trujillo González et al., 2016) and for Cu, Zn, Cd
and Pb, their sources include the use of gasoline type fuels, tire and
brake pad wear, oils, lubricants, and grease (Christoforidis and Stamatis,
2009). Therefore, the source type is not the only controlling mechanism.
Land use types can weaken or enhance trace metal concentrations or
change the pollutant types in dust. Furthermore, land use type may
affect local microclimate and influence the air pollution. During the
period of urban expansion from zone O to zone N, the constructed land
increased from 12% to 45% and farm land decreased from 57% to 27%.
Meanwhile, forest land decreased from 15% to 11%. The relationship
between the EFs of Cr, Ni, Zn and ERI may be due to their simple and
transformable sources, as they increase simultaneously with an increase
8
Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 212 (2021) 111944
of constructed land and a decrease of farm land and forest. However, the
other trace metals may have multiple sources and can be influenced by
other factors besides land use type variation.
4. Conclusions
The contamination of trace metals in street dust in the urban area of
Nanchang city in China was evaluated. The urban area was divided into
four different zones based on the constructed land expansion during
different time periods. The EFs of trace metals have obvious regional
variations and seasonal variations between summer and winter. The
range of EF values were found to be: Cr (0.76–16.38), Ni (0.66–9.06), Cu
(1.09–169.58), Zn (1.52–36.16), As (0.44–7.17), Cd (2.07–78.38) and
Pb (0.95–20.94). The contamination level of these trace metals ranged
from minimal pollution to significant pollution. In particular, there are
some extreme pollution locations with the EF of Cd, Cu and Zn being
more than 30. The main sources of trace metals in street dust are
determined to be industrial discharge and traffic emissions, though the
percentages of their contributions have significant spatial divergences.
Areas with a high EF of Cr, Ni and Zn correspond to high ecological
risk areas. The relationship between the ERI value and the EF value of
trace metals is significant, with R2 for Cr, Ni and Zn of 0.932, 0.980 and
0.865, respectively. This suggests that point source pollution may not
always be clearly related to the ERI of trace metals Cr, Ni and Zn. The
land use types and characteristics of the pollution source jointly affect
the relationship between EFs and ERI.
L. Chen et al.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Liwen Chen: Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Valida­
tion, Writing, Visualization. Zhang Hua: Conceptualization, Method­
ology, Resources, Supervision, Writing - review & editing. Mingjun
Ding: Conceptualization, Resources, Supervision, Writing - review &
editing. Adam Thomas Devlin: Writing - review & editing. Peng Wang:
Methodology. Minghua Nie: Methodology. Kun Xie: Data Curation.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgement
The study supported by National Natural Science Foundation of
China (No. 41761020, 42061018 and 41961049). We highly acknowl­
edge Key Lab of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Ministry
of Education Jiangxi, China for technical support.
Appendix A. Supporting information
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found in the
online version at doi:10.1016/j.ecoenv.2021.111944.
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