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Multi-scaled response of groundwater nitrate contamination to integrated anthropogenic activities in a rapidly urbanizing agricultural catchment

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Abstract

Anthropogenic activities have a significant contribution to groundwater nitrate contamination at multiple spatial scales in urbanizing agricultural catchments, while how to derive the optimal researching scale and explore the relative importance among anthropogenic activities for groundwater nitrate contamination still remains challenging. In this study, 165 perched groundwater and 120 shallow groundwater samples were collected in two urbanizing agricultural catchments, to explore anthropogenic activity effects on groundwater nitrate contamination crossing multiple spatial scales, integrating the probability kriging, multi-scale comparison at spatial scales of 100 to 1900 m with an increment of 200 m at the block scales, and variance partitioning analysis. Probability of perched and shallow groundwater nitrate concentration > 3 mg L−1 exhibited strong spatial autocorrelation, with effective ranges of 1091 m and 3743 m from semivariogram, respectively. Relationships between perched and shallow groundwater nitrate concentrations were more significant and robust (r = 0.30–0.52, p < 0.001) at the block scale from 300 to 1100 m, indicating that perched groundwater nitrate closely related to shallow groundwater nitrate. The responses of groundwater nitrate contamination on anthropogenic drivers presented strongly scaling correlation and had the highest correlation at the spatial scale of 1100 m, suggesting the optimal scale for exploring anthropogenic activity effects on groundwater nitrate contamination. The three categories of anthropogenic drivers (urbanization, agriculture intensification, and demographic driver) contributed to 31.0–84.0% part of the total variations in groundwater nitrate contamination at the spatial scale of 1100 m. Particularly, agriculture intensification was the most influential driver for groundwater nitrate contamination, while the urbanizing process and population growth played important roles surrounding urban cores. Our findings highlighted the importance of incorporating multi-scale comparisons on regional groundwater quality evaluation, and provided technical support to the groundwater resource management strategy development in urbanizing agricultural regions.

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Funding

This research was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (2017YFD0800105), the Key Programs of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (QYZDJ-SSW-DQC041), the Youth Innovation Team Project of ISA, CAS (2017QNCXTD_LF), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41301202).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Agro-ecological Processes in Subtropical Regions, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, 410125, China

    Xinliang Liu, Yi Wang, Yong Li, Feng Liu, Jianlin Shen, Juan Wang, Runlin Xiao & Jinshui Wu

  2. Changsha Research Station for Agricultural and Environmental Monitoring, Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 644, the Second Yuanda Road, Furong District, Changsha, 410125, Hunan, China

    Xinliang Liu, Yi Wang, Yong Li, Feng Liu, Jianlin Shen, Juan Wang, Runlin Xiao & Jinshui Wu

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  1. Xinliang Liu
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  2. Yi Wang
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  3. Yong Li
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  4. Feng Liu
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  5. Jianlin Shen
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  6. Juan Wang
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  7. Runlin Xiao
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  8. Jinshui Wu
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Correspondence to Yi Wang.

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Liu, X., Wang, Y., Li, Y. et al. Multi-scaled response of groundwater nitrate contamination to integrated anthropogenic activities in a rapidly urbanizing agricultural catchment. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 34931–34942 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06595-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06595-9

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