[Objective] To Studying the distribution characteristics, risks and driving force of heavy metal pollution in the sediments of Dongting Lake and its tributaries can provide a scientific scheme for the treatment of heavy metal pollution in the surface sediments of the basin, and play a vital role in ensuring the ecological security of the basin.[Research Methods] This paper comprehensively evaluates and analyzes the content of 7 kinds of heavy metals in Dongting Lake basin, combined with different distribution characteristics of the basin. Introduce geographic detector model for spatial differentiation of surface sediments, combined with the ls and geographical weighted regression model, quantitative explore all kinds of influence factors on the geographical space of the lake surface sediments of heavy metal pollution distribution driver, while the Arcgis of the main influence factor correlation coefficient of spatial visual expression.[Results] The results show that: (1) the Igeo (ground accumulation index) of the mean of Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn elements in Dongting Lake sediment is less than 1, which is to the mean of Cd Igeo is between 1 and 2, which belongs to moderate pollution.(2) through the geographic detector model, rainfall, distance from the highway, DEM, sand and clay to the dongting lake sediment heavy metal accumulation index (Igeo) has strong interpretation, shows that dongting lake sediment heavy metal pollution by geographical factors such as influence, but also closely related to human activities.[Conclusion] 1. On the whole, the average value of the sediments in Dongting Lake area is 2, which belongs to the medium pollution degree.2. The serious pollution areas are mainly concentrated in the Zijiang River basin and the Xiangjiang River into the Dongting Lake basin and the center of Dongting Lake, and the sediment sediment in the Yuanjiang River basin shows moderate pollution.3, through the geographical detector, select rainfall, according to the highway distance, DEM of sediment heavy metals Itot spatial distribution interpretation of strong factors, interaction detector results show that the factor interaction are nonlinear enhancement, shows that the selection of environment, natural factors on the lake surface sediment heavy metal spatial distribution dispersion play a driving role.