Effects of land use intensity on the natural attenuation capacity of urban soils in Beijing, China

• The natural attenuation capacity in urban soils was significantly related to land uses.
• Parks in Beijing city have the highest index of soil natural attenuation capacity.
• Sealed area rate was negatively related to soil natural attenuation capacity.
• It would take dozens of years to reach the maximum soil NAC by soil self-recovery.

Urban soils are major sinks that provide the services of attenuating and detoxifying environmental pollutants. This significant ecosystem service of urban soil can be evaluated by the natural attenuation capacity (NAC). In this research, we develop a method to calculate the natural pollutant attenuation capacity of urban soils on the basis of 5 chemical and physical measurements. By selecting municipal parks soils for reference, we assessed the spatial and temporal changes of NAC in Beijing city soils under influences of rapid urbanization. Results indicated that NAC was increasingly impacted by land use in the order: parks