Soil environmental quality of agricultural land plays a determinate role in the quality of agricultural products, human health, and the safety of the ecosystem. In 2018, China issued the "soil environment quality risk control standard for soil contamination of agriculture land" (GB 15618-2018), which has been essential to soil pollution prevention and the control of agricultural land. In this study, a systematic and comparative analysis of soil environmental standards for the agricultural land of 17 countries or regions was conducted, including the framework, protection objective, derivation method, contaminant elements, analyses methods, and standard values, as well as the impact factors. The results showed that the number of contaminants of GB 15618-2018 was insufficient with the simple consideration of total concentrations. Meanwhile, there was a lack of the standardized derivation method. On such a basis, we put forward some suggestions to improve GB 15618-2018 in light of the aforementioned problems, including strengthening the research of soil environmental benchmark and background values; establishing the scientific and standardized derivation method; and improving the number, form, and availability of indicators for risk control. In the meantime, the regional and local background environmental concentration of soil was highly proposed as a supplement and optimization to soil screening values.
Keywords: agricultural land; bioavailability; risk control standard for soil contamination; safety of agricultural product; safety of terrestrial ecosystem.