Metal contamination has become increasingly serious in soil,water,and food in China with rapid development of economy and urbanization in the past decades.Our study overviewed metal contamination in urban soils in 21 Chinese cities.We further used Shanghai,the largest Chinese metropolis,as the model city to understand urbanization effects on metal contamination in soil and sediment of 14 public waterscape parks.Anthropogenic metals were significantly enriched in topsoil and surface sediment of the investigated public parks.The remarkable urbanization effect on metal enrichment was observed along the radius gradient from downtown to suburban and in dated sediment cores from downtown public parks as the environmental Kuznets curve.Lead isotopic composition analysis explored that coal combustion dominantly contributed Pb loading in topsoil,sediment,and sediment cores.Health risk assessment for metal contamination in soils was conducted in 14 parks of Xiamen,China.Park soils had a carcinogenic risk of Cr contamination for adults but no non-carcinogenic risks for children.Ingestion is the major pathway for adult carcinogenic risk.Both total and bioaccessible contents of metals in park soils showed the similar health risks.These studies indicate that urbanization increased metal loadings in urban environment and the health risk of metal contamination has presented.Attentions should be paid by metropolitan managers for reduction of metal emissions,such as substituting green energy for coal consumption.