Sedimentation of soil particles in water is perhaps the most significant pathway to contamination of aquatic ecosystems. In this scenario, the use of freshwater organisms for assessing sediment toxicity will be considered more ecologically relevant than tests that use aqueous soil extracts. To evaluate the toxicity of soils sampled in the vicinity of the abandoned mine located in the Gyeonggi province, Daphnia magna were exposed to a 1:4 of soil to water which soil samples were serially two-fold serially diluted with clean sand to concentrations ranging from 6.25 to 100 % % (w/w) for 24- and 48-h. Irrespective of exposure time, the survival of D. magna for reference soil was not decreased, while the survival of D. magna showed high sensitivity to the soils with moderate as well as high metal concentrations. Moreover, the heavy metal concentrations in the water samples increased with increasing the heavy metal concentrations in the soils, which indicates the increased sensitivity is the consequences of the bioavailable fraction of contaminants in soils. These results clearly showed that the freshwater organism D. magna can be used as test species to assess the potential impact of soil contaminants into aquatic ecosystems.