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Determining storm sampling requirements for improving precision of annual load estimates of nutrients from a small forested watershed

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Abstract

This study sought to determine the lowest number of storm events required for adequate estimation of annual nutrient loads from a forested watershed using the regression equation between cumulative load (∑L) and cumulative stream discharge (∑Q). Hydrological surveys were conducted for 4 years, and stream water was sampled sequentially at 15–60-min intervals during 24 h in 20 events, as well as weekly in a small forested watershed. The bootstrap sampling technique was used to determine the regression (∑L–∑Q) equations of dissolved nitrogen (DN) and phosphorus (DP), particulate nitrogen (PN) and phosphorus (PP), dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), and suspended solid (SS) for each dataset of ∑L and ∑Q. For dissolved nutrients (DN, DP, DIN), the coefficient of variance (CV) in 100 replicates of 4-year average annual load estimates was below 20% with datasets composed of five storm events. For particulate nutrients (PN, PP, SS), the CV exceeded 20%, even with datasets composed of more than ten storm events. The differences in the number of storm events required for precise load estimates between dissolved and particulate nutrients were attributed to the goodness of fit of the ∑L–∑Q equations. Bootstrap simulation based on flow-stratified sampling resulted in fewer storm events than the simulation based on random sampling and showed that only three storm events were required to give a CV below 20% for dissolved nutrients. These results indicate that a sampling design considering discharge levels reduces the frequency of laborious chemical analyses of water samples required throughout the year.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (#04J06809, #17380096, #18208014, and #21380098) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, the Espec Foundation for Global Environment Research and Technology, the Sasagawa Scientific Research Grant from the Japan Science Society, and the Shimane University Priority Research Project. We acknowledge the contributions of time and comments from two anonymous reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. International Research Center for River Basin Environment, University of Yamanashi, 4-3-11 Takeda, Kofu, Yamanashi, 400-8511, Japan

    Jun’ichiro Ide

  2. Department of Forest and Forest Products Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Graduate Schools of Kyushu University, 394 Tsubakuro, Sasaguri, 811-2415, Japan

    Masaaki Chiwa, Naoko Higashi & Kyoichi Otsuki

  3. Department of Forest and Forest Products Sciences, Graduate School of Bioresources and Bioenvironmental Sciences, Kyushu University, 394 Tsubakuro, Sasaguri, 811-2415, Japan

    Ryoko Maruno

  4. Faculty of Life and Environmental Science, Shimane University, 1060 Nishikawatsu-cho, Matsue, Shimane, 690-8504, Japan

    Yasushi Mori

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  1. Jun’ichiro Ide
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Correspondence to Jun’ichiro Ide.

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Ide, J., Chiwa, M., Higashi, N. et al. Determining storm sampling requirements for improving precision of annual load estimates of nutrients from a small forested watershed. Environ Monit Assess 184, 4747–4762 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-011-2299-9

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