In the present study, a laboratory experiment was designed to compare the 0.01 M calcium chloride (CaCl2) and diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) extraction methods for their ability to predict cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), iron (Fe), Manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), and zinc (Zn) availability and mobility in five calcareous soils. The soils were spiked with different amounts of metals (0, 50, 100, 200, and 400 mg kg−1) both in binary (Cu and Zn; Ni and Cd; Fe and Mn) and in multi-systems (Cd, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, and Zn) and incubated for 1 months at field capacity. In metal-spiked soils, both extraction methods showed a linear relationship of extractable to total metals for all soils. The fraction of total metals extracted by DTPA was much higher than the fraction extracted by CaCl2, which was attributed to the formation of soluble metal-complexes in the complexing extracts calculated by the Visual Minteq program. DTPA extraction method showed higher selectivity for Cu over other metals both in binary and in multisystems. Different order of metals extractability was found in binary and multi-systems for both extraction methods. Solid/solution distribution coefficient (Kd) was calculated by the ratio of the solid phase to soil solution concentration of metals extracted by CaCl2 or DTPA extraction methods. Both in binary and in multi-systems, the average Kd (l kg−1) of metals by soils were in the order of Mn (5398) > Fe (4413) > Zn (3376) > Cu (2520) > Ni (969) > Cd (350) in the CaCl2-extractable metals and Fe (35) " Ni (34) > Zn (18) > Mn (11.2) > Cu (6.3) > Cd (4) in the DTPA-extractable metals. Results showed that among the six studied metals, Cd had the lowest Kd, implying a relative higher mobility in these calcareous soils. The Visual Minteq indicated that in the CaCl2-extraction method and in both binary and multi-systems the dominant species for Cu, Mn, Ni, and Zn were Cu2+, Mn2+, Ni2+ and Zn2+, respectively, while for Cd and Fe, the dominant species were CdCl+ an
