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Evaluation of the upper lakes of the Erhai watershed in China based on water quality, land cover, and macrobenthic invertebrates

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Abstract

In this study, three lakes, Cibi Hu, Haixi Hai, and Xi Hu, in the upper reaches of the main inflow rivers in the northern part of Erhai Lake were selected as the research objects. Based on the water environment monitoring indicators, land cover data, and lake macrobenthic community observation data, the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test, spatial analysis and community structure analysis were used to quantitatively assess the water environment and ecological status of the lakes. Using the Pollution Tolerance Index (PTI), the potential utility of macroinvertebrate communities as indicators of water ecological quality was investigated. The results showed that Cibi Hu and Haixi Hai have similar characteristics on water environmental quality. The physical and chemical indexes of water quality, the land cover of the lake catchment area, and the PTI index of the benthic community showed that Xi Hu was the most affected by human disturbance; the water ecological condition was the worst; and the environmental protection pressure was the greatest. In general, PTI analysis based on benthic fauna is convenient and can reflect the basic conditions of the aquatic benthic environment keenly, which is worthy of promotion.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Mr. Long Zhang and Mr. Pingzhong Jin for helping to collect specimens and for their support in the field. We also thank Dr. Junting Pang (Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, CAAS) for the valuable suggestions.

Funding

This research was funded by Erhai Watershed Ecological Environment Quality Testing Engineering Research Center of Yunnan provincial Universities by Dr. Wenxian Hu and Dr. Wenhua Chen (DXDGCZX04).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Erhai Watershed Ecological Environment Quality Testing Engineering Research Center of Yunnan Provincial Universities, Erhai Research Institute, West Yunnan University of Applied Sciences, Dali, China

    Wenxian Hu & Zhoujiang Liu

  2. College of resources and environment, Baoshan University, Baoshan, China

    Zhangbing Wu & Wenhua Chen

  3. Yunnan Wenbai Consulting Co., Ltd., Kunming, China

    Zhangbing Wu

  4. Institute of Eastern-Himalaya Biodiversity Research, Dali University, Dali, China

    Yuan Mu

Authors
  1. Wenxian Hu
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  2. Zhangbing Wu
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  3. Yuan Mu
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  4. Zhoujiang Liu
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  5. Wenhua Chen
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Contributions

Conceptualization and supervision: W. H. and W. C.; methodology: W. C., Z. W.; writing — original draft preparation, W. C.， W. H., Z. W., and Y. M.; writing — review and editing, W. H., Y. M., and Z. L.; validation, W. H. and W. C. All the authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wenhua Chen.

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Ethical approval

The animal study was reviewed and approved by the Experimental Animal Ethics Committee of Dali University. Every effort was made to treat the animals humanely and to tackle ethical issues.

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The authors agreed it.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Hu, ., Wu, Z., Mu, Y. et al. Evaluation of the upper lakes of the Erhai watershed in China based on water quality, land cover, and macrobenthic invertebrates. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 104169–104180 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29773-2

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