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Nitrate sources and their influence on hydrogeochemistry in karst caves of Southwest China

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Abstract

Nitrate (NO3−) pollution in karst areas has been widely discussed, which affects human health and the ecological environment. To investigate nitrate sources and their perturbations on cave hydrogeochemistry in karst cave systems, this study was conducted in Mahuang Cave, a karst cave in Southwest China, to assess the impact of human activities on the karst carbon cycle and the environment. The results show that (1) the variations of the water-soluble ions in Mahuang Cave are mainly controlled by carbonate weathering, and the cave water chemistry is characterized as the HCO3–Ca–Mg and HCO3–SO4–Ca–Mg types. (2) The dual isotopes and stable isotope Bayesian mixing model (SIAR) show that chemical fertilizers (41.5%) and soil nitrogen (33.75%) are the main nitrate sources in the cave water bodies, followed by manure and sewage (17.25%) and atmospheric precipitation (7.5%). (3) The significant enrichment of dissolved inorganic carbon isotope (δ13CDIC) in Mahuang Cave reveals that nitric acid produced by nitrification accelerates carbonate weathering in Mahuang Cave, and the carbon source effect of the carbon cycle in the cave is enhanced. Consequently, the response of cave drips and sediments to external environments is disturbed.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This research was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42161048), the Science and Technology Program of Guizhou Province (Qiankehe Support [2023] General 218 and Qiankehezhongyindi [2023] 005) and the Academic New Seedling Fund Project of Guizhou Normal University (Qian Shi Xinmiao [2022] 23). We sincerely thank all the staff of Shuanghe Cave National Geopark and Mr Jie Zhang for their help in sampling campaigns conducted in the Mahuang Cave. We are grateful for the constructive comments and suggestions from the reviewers and editor.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Karst Science/School of Geography and Environmental Science, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang, 550001, China

    Zhongfa Zhou, Shengjun Ding, Yong Xiong, Liangxing Shi, Dan Su, Xiaohuan Gong, Hui Dong & Lihui Yan

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  1. Zhongfa Zhou
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Contributions

ZZ: investigation, methodology, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition. SD: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, data curation, writing—original draft. YX: writing—review and editing, investigation, data curation, and contributed to manuscript writing and revision. LS: conceptualization, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. DS: investigation, data curation. XG: investigation, visualization. DH: methodology and image editing. LY: funding acquisition and contributed to manuscript writing and revision.

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Correspondence to Zhongfa Zhou.

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Zhou, Z., Ding, S., Xiong, Y. et al. Nitrate sources and their influence on hydrogeochemistry in karst caves of Southwest China. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 112, 2325–2338 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-023-02343-0

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