The background concentrations of groundwater components are crucial for evaluating groundwater pollution and assessing the genesis of natural poor-quality water. However, research on the background concentrations of arsenic in natural high-arsenic groundwater has been relatively limited. This study selected the Datong Basin as the research area and comprehensively employed the cumulative frequency method, component separation method, and machine learning random forest model to investigate arsenic enrichment processes, quantify the relative contributions of various environmental factors, and preliminarily predict the background arsenic concentration in groundwater. Results showed that arsenic concentrations in groundwater ranged from 0.03 to 1081 μg/L, with high-arsenic groundwater mainly distributed in runoff-discharge areas. The cumulative frequency method indicated that the upper limit of the background arsenic concentration in the study area was 7.59 μg/L; for the recharge area and the runoff-discharge area, the respective upper limits were 4.47 μg/L and 10.9 μg/L. The component separation method yielded a background value of 13.3 μg/L for the study area, with values of 6.16 μg/L and 33.4 μg/L for the recharge area and runoff-discharge area, respectively. The random forest model predicted that the formation of high-arsenic groundwater was the result of multiple interacting environmental factors, with varying relative importance among them. The concentrations of SO42- and Fe2+ were found to be highly important for predicting the arsenic background value, indicating that high-arsenic groundwater in the Datong Basin was mainly influenced by coupled sulfur-iron cycling. These findings improve the understanding of high-arsenic groundwater formation mechanisms and provide a scientific basis for ensuring local drinking water safety.
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