Abstract:With widespread attention to rural environmental pollution and the increase of rural river sediment dredging project, the disposal of dredged sediment has become an increasingly serious problem. Pot experiment in greenhouse was carried out and multivariate statistical analysis was used to explore the effects of agricultural useof dredged sediment from rural river on rice growing, yield and quality. The results indicated that the height, spike numbers, biomassand grain yield of rice growing in sediments were lower than those growing in soil. Significant positive correlations?were obtained between alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen and plant biomass (0.585*), and alkali-hydrolyzable nitrogen and grain production (0.556*). In addition, both biomass and grain yield of rice showed extremely significant negative correlation with soluble salts (–0.914** and –0.897** respectively) and extremely significantly positive correlation with Eh (0.887** and 0.857** respectively). Path analysis showed that soluble salts and Eh were the key limiting factors in sediment agricultural use. The bioconcentration factors of heavy metals in rice followed the order of Zn(0.23)>Cu(0.09)=Cd(0.09)>Cr(0.005)>Ni(0.002 5)>Pb(0.001 7). Stepwise regression analysis showed that the accumulations of heavy metals in rice were related to soil available heavy metals, pH and organic matter. The target hazard quotient (THQ) value of the single heavy metal was lower than 1 and the order was Cu>Zn>Cd>Pb>Ni>Cr. However, the total target hazard quotient (TTHQ) value of heavy metals was higher than 1 and the TTHQ value through consumption of rice for adults was higher than that for children. This indicated that adultsand children may experience adverse health effects and the risk of non-carcinogenic effects foradults is slightly higher than that for children.