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The effects of nutrient loading from different sources on eutrophication in a large shallow lake in Southeast China

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Abstract

Lake water eutrophication has become one of the leading obstacles to sustainable economic development in China. Research on the effects of mainstream currents on reservoirs has been relatively underdeveloped compared with research on tributaries, though changes in the water–sediment transport regime in a downstream river may affect nutrient transport behavior in a lake connected to that river. This is particularly problematic because certain wastewater sources, including runoff from agricultural wastes and industrial discharges, adversely affect lake water. Our study focused on Sanshiliujiao Lake, a significant drinking water source in Fujian, Southeast China, that has suffered considerably from eutrophication over the past few decades. This study aimed to estimate the phosphorus and nitrogen loads to the lake, exploring their sources and their ecologic effects using in situ observation and the export coefficient model. Our results showed that the pollution loads of total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) were 2.390 and 46.040 t/year, respectively, most of which were derived from the water diversion (TP 45.7%, TN 29.2%) and non-point source (TP 30.2%, TN 41.6%). The TN input was the highest in East river (3.557 kg/d), followed by Red river (2.524 kg/d). During the wet season, the input of TP and TN increased by 14.6 and 18.7 times, respectively, but produced only slight variations in concentration. Water diversion enriched the nutrients inputs and altered the structure and abundance of phytoplankton communities. In addition, when water flows from the main river directly to Sanshiliujiao Lake, algal blooms in river-connected lakes are significantly exacerbated, so our study may also serve as a theoretical basis to regulate eutrophication in Sanshiliujiao Lake.

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Data availability

The datasets generated analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all participants in this study and Fujian Province Research Centre for River and Lake Health Assessment for the professional support and in the management of the project and the publication.

Funding

Funding was provided by National Key Research & Development Plan “Strategic International Scientific and Technological Innovation Cooperation” (2016YFE0202100) and Marine Red Tide Early Warning and Prevention in Pingtan Coastal Area (PT2021006).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Science and Engineering College, Fujian Key Laboratory of Pollution Control and Resource Recycling, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350007, People’s Republic of China

    Balaji-Prasath Barathan, Wenting Chen, Yuping Su, Xue Wang & Yinxing Chen

  2. Fujian Province Research Centre for River and Lake Health Assessment, Fuzhou, 350007, People’s Republic of China

    Balaji-Prasath Barathan & Yuping Su

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  1. Balaji-Prasath Barathan
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Contributions

Balaji-Prasath Barathan contributed to conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, and funding acquisition; Wenting Chen, Yinxing Chen, and Xue Wang performed formal analysis and data curation; Yuping Su contributed to conceptualization, supervision, investigation, project administration, writing—review and editing, and funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Yuping Su.

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Barathan, BP., Chen, W., Su, Y. et al. The effects of nutrient loading from different sources on eutrophication in a large shallow lake in Southeast China. Environ Geochem Health 45, 7603–7620 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-023-01641-5

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