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Does stream water chemistry reflect watershedcharacteristics?

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Abstract

In this study, we investigated the relationships between stream water chemistry and watershed characteristics (topography—mean altitude and slope; climate—mean annual temperature and precipitation; geology—geochemical reactivity; land cover; inhabitation—population density, road density and number of municipalities). We analyzed the concentrations of the major anions (Cl, F, NO3, SO4, SiO2), cations (Ca, Mg, Na, K, Mn, Fe, Al), trace elements (Li, Sr, Cu), ABS245, TDP (total dissolved phosphorus), pH, and conductivity at 3,220 diverse watersheds covering a wide variety of watershed characteristics in the Czech Republic. We used marginal and partial multivariate analyses to reveal the most important variables. The partial analysis showed that only 14 % of the variance could be assigned to a specific factor and that 41 % of the variance is shared among the factors, which indicated complex interactions between the watershed characteristics.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported primarily by the Norway and EEA Financial Mechanisms (CZ 0051), the CzechGlobe—Centre for Global Climate Change Impacts Studies, Reg. No. CZ.1.05/1.1.00/02.0073, the Research Plan AVOZ60870520 and the institutional resources of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic for the support of science and research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Geochemistry and Biogeochemistry, Czech Geological Survey, Klárov 3, 118 21, Prague 1, Czech Republic

    Tomáš Chuman, Jakub Hruška, Filip Oulehle & Vladimír Majer

  2. Department of Information Systems, Czech Geological Survey, Klárov 3, 118 21, Prague 1, Czech Republic

    Pavla Gürtlerová

  3. Global Change Research Centre, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Bělidla 986/4a, 603 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Tomáš Chuman, Jakub Hruška & Filip Oulehle

  4. Faculty of Science, Department of Physical Geography and Geoecology, Charles University in Prague, Albertov 6, 128 43, Prague 2, Czech Republic

    Tomáš Chuman

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  1. Tomáš Chuman
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  2. Jakub Hruška
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Correspondence to Tomáš Chuman.

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Chuman, T., Hruška, J., Oulehle, F. et al. Does stream water chemistry reflect watershedcharacteristics?. Environ Monit Assess 185, 5683–5701 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-2976-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-2976-3

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