This paper is the result of environmental geological survey engineering.

Objective Soil heavy metal pollution is the main factor that causes the decline of soil ecological environment quality, crop heavy metal exceeds the national standard and even endangers human health. Mining and smelting activities are the primary source of soil heavy metal pollution. China's domestic metal mines have relatively low-grade and are expensive to process. The mining process produces a large amount of toxic and harmful heavy metals into the soil, which causes severe soil heavy metal pollution due to mining activities. At present, finding suitable methods to remediate heavy metal contaminated soils in mining areas is a hot issue and complex research area in environmental science.

Methods This paper reviews the characteristics, hazards and remediation technology of heavy metal pollution in mining soils by many relevant literatures.

Results The current remediation methods for soil heavy metal pollution in mining areas include: (1) engineering remediation technology: guest soil method; (2) physical remediation technology: electro kinetic remediation, vitrification method and heat treatment method; (3) chemical remediation techniques: soil leaching and fixation; (4) bioremediation technology: phytoremediation and microbial remediation method.

Conclusions The guest soil method is the most widely used and effective treatment technique, and phytoremediation technology is the best application prospect. A single remediation technique often has certain limitations in the actual remediation of heavy metal contaminated soil in mines. It cannot meet the remediation needs, so a combined remediation method combining multiple remediation techniques can complement each other to achieve the best remediation effect.