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Developing a salinity-based approach for the evaluation of DIN removal rate in estuarine ecosystems

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Abstract

Estuaries play an important role in the removal of overloading nitrogen to relieve the eutrophic pressure of coastal seawater. However, the exact amount of nitrogen removed in estuarine ecosystems is difficult to be estimated because of the complex dynamic mixing process between riverine water and coastal seawater. In this study, a new method was developed to calculate the removal rate of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) in estuarine waters attributed to the mixing process and was based on the assumption that relative salinity can serve as an indicator of the degree of mixing. This assumption was supported by the experimental results that demonstrated a linear regression relationship between DIN decline and salinity increase Thus, the decreased amount of DIN in mixing waters attributed to the dilution effect could be determined with the salinity as an index. With this model, the DIN removal rate in both Chesapeake Bay and Pearl River Estuary were defined. As predicted, our analysis demonstrated that the DIN removal rate increased gradually from upstream to downstream in both studied estuaries with obvious seasonable variation pattern: high in warm seasons and low in cold seasons. The practical application of this method might be affected by multiple factors, including the geographic landform of estuaries, initial estuaries DIN concentration, the DIN concentration in seawater, DIN importing from tributaries, sewage discharge and hydrodynamic mixing. Therefore, the results supported the hypothesis that estuaries have a strong capability to remove the nitrogen inputted from human activities, especially in warm season and therefore should play an important role in regulating the balance of global nitrogen biogeochemical cycle.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Dr. Feng Chen for providing the nutrient dada of Chesapeake Bay. This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31270163), National Key Basic Research Program of China (No. 2015CB452902), Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong (No. S2013020012823) and Scientific Research Project of Guangzhou (No. 15020023).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tropical Oceanography (LTO), South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, People’s Republic of China

    Yiguo Hong, Shuailong Wang, Jiapeng Wu, Ling Liu, Weizhong Yue, Meilin Wu & Youshao Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, People’s Republic of China

    Shuailong Wang & Xiang-Rong Xu

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

    Shuailong Wang & Jiapeng Wu

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  1. Yiguo Hong
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  2. Shuailong Wang
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  3. Xiang-Rong Xu
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  4. Jiapeng Wu
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  5. Ling Liu
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  6. Weizhong Yue
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  7. Meilin Wu
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  8. Youshao Wang
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Correspondence to Yiguo Hong or Xiang-Rong Xu.

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Hong, Y., Wang, S., Xu, XR. et al. Developing a salinity-based approach for the evaluation of DIN removal rate in estuarine ecosystems. Ecotoxicology 24, 1611–1620 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10646-015-1478-9

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