Abstract: Soil samples from Shanghai region were selected to determine the available content of eight elements by combining the ammonium bicarbonate-DTPA extraction and the inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry.The analysis results were also compared with the method of CaCl₂-DTPA.The results showed that the available content of Cu,Zn,Mg,Ni,S,Cr,Mo,As by the method of AB-DTPA was greater than that of the method of CaCl₂-DTPA.The available contents of the seven elements including Cu,Zn,Mg,Ni,S,Cr,Mo determined by the method of AB-DTPA got an extremely significant correlation with that by CaCl₂-DTPA method.But the available content of as determined by the AB-DTPA method got nearly no significant correlation with that of the CaCl₂-DTPA method.The results showed that the extraction rates of the available content of the eight elements by the AB-DTPA method were higher than the CaCl₂-DTPA method,and most of the two methods analysis had a significant correlation.So the AB-DTPA method could get a better result to determine the available contents of the eight elements in soils than the CaCl₂-DTPA method.