Abstract
Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution caused by land use seriously threatens the surface water ecosystem. However, the relationship between surface water quality and land use remains obscure in multiple spatiotemporal scales. The spatiotemporal variation characteristics of the eutrophication degree were discussed via the in situ investigation, and the effects of land use on water quality were quantitatively studied through correlation analysis and redundancy analysis in the Honghu Lake Basin, a typical active agriculturally disturbed basin. Results show that the water quality of the entire basin has suffered from serious nitrogen (with the total nitrogen ranging from 1.90 to 11.72 mg/L in the dry season and 1.07–9.24 mg/L in the rainy season) and phosphorus (with the total phosphorus ranging from 0.07 to 1.78 mg/L in the dry season and 0.02–0.56 mg/L in the rainy season) pollution. Seasonally, the nutrient concentration in dry the season are approximately 14–46% higher than those in the rainy season, and the nutrient concentration upstream is higher in spatial distribution. Correlation analysis indicates that forest and wetland were negatively correlated with nutrient concentrations, while cultivated land and residence community were positively correlated with nutrient concentrations. Redundancy analysis shows that the spatial variation of the water quality is best explained at a small scale (1000 m buffer) and in the rainy season (55%). Our study can provide a strategy for land use planning for water quality management and protection in a typical agriculturally disturbed basin, like the Honghu Lake basin.
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This work was supported by the Key Project of Hubei Province Natural Science Foundation (2020CFA110; 2015CFA132), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41601545) and Youth Innovation Promotion Association, Chinese of Academy of Sciences (2018369).
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Lu Zhang contributed to writing the original draft, methodology and software. Xi Liu took part in methodology and data curation. Huimin Wei was involved in data curation. Enhua Li and Chao Yang carried out investigation. Zhi Wang carried out project administration, supervision, writing the review, editing and funding acquisition.
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Zhang, L., Liu, X., Wei, H. et al. Impact of land use on surface water quality: a case study of active agriculturally disturbed basin in China. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 19, 4435–4446 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03363-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-021-03363-6