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Riparian Buffer Zone and Whole Watershed Influences on River Water Quality: Implications for Ecosystem Services near Megacities

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Abstract

Water quality is one of the most altered ecosystem services in watersheds at the periphery of megacities, where point sources and non-point sources of pollution derived from domestic and agricultural activities are in many cases not well regulated. Despite widespread needs for information, riparian ecosystem service management of megacities in developing countries is largely absent from the literature. To begin to understand connections between surface water quality and landscape factors (i.e. land use and topography), we examined physicochemical and biological properties of water quality at 37 sub-watersheds of the Guadalupe Dam Watershed (GDW) that lies to the northwest of Mexico City. The influences on water quality of sub-watershed versus riparian zone at 50, 100 and 200 m were compared. We applied multiple linear regressions and redundancy analysis. The latter was also used to partition the variance explained by topography (i.e. elevation and slope), land use, and their combined variation. Our results showed that elevation had the greatest influence on water quality, likely because it represents a gradient of urban influence and consequently environmental pollution. Agriculture was not a dominant predictor of water quality, and its direct impacts were somewhat masked given the interaction with other land uses and landscape factors. The shared variation of topography and land use exerted more influence on water quality than either alone, showing that topographic factors constrain certain human activities in the area. Landscape factors accounted for more variation (52 %) at 100 m of riparian zone, giving new information important for the management of riparian ecosystems. Our findings are a step forward in the understanding of the effects of human activities and natural landscape features in providing water of good quality. They will also assist natural resource managers in the challenge of managing water-related ecosystem services through scientifically-based management actions and policies, a gap faced by regulatory authorities of megacities in the developing world.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Juan Carlos Alvarez for his valuable contributions to the statistics during the development of this paper; to the Mountain Ecosystems Laboratory and to Claudia Ponce de León Hill and Manuel Hernández Quiroz from the Environmental Analysis Unit (Unidad de Análisis Ambiental) of the School of Science at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) for providing technical assistance in the analysis of samples and for providing laboratory facilities; to the students of the School of Science, UNAM, Xiuhnel Peña, Jose Luis Jiménez, Guadalupe Roldán, Jennifer Segura, Diana Nava, Nihaib Flores and Monica M. Vázquez for their support in field assessments and data management, and a special thanks to the community of Isidro Fabela, Jilotzingo and Nicolas Romero, in particular to Pascual Palacios, Edgardo de la Rosa, Cudverto Rosas and Felipe Chavarria, that accompanied during field trips throughout their forest and therefore allowed the development of this research. Financial support for this research was received from the Research Collaboration Seed Grant Program of the Instituto Nacional de Ecología AC and SUNY-College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Research Grant of the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean (PLACA), ESF's Randolph G. Pack Environmental Institute research grant and the Consejo Nacional para la Ciencia y la Teconología (CONACYT-México).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate Program in Environmental Science, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA

    Mariana Z. Nava-López

  2. Department of Environmental and Forest Biology, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA

    Stewart A. W. Diemont

  3. Department of Environmental Studies, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA

    Myrna Hall

  4. Instituto de Ciencias Agropecuarias y Rurales, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Carretera Toluca - Atlacomulco Km. 14.5, CP 50000, Toluca, Mexico

    Víctor Ávila-Akerberg

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  1. Mariana Z. Nava-López
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  4. Víctor Ávila-Akerberg
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Correspondence to Mariana Z. Nava-López.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 6 Descriptive statistics of water quality data in the Guadalupe Dam Watershed, Mexico
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Appendix 2

Table 7 Land Cover at the whole landscape scale and 50, 100, 200 m of riparian buffer for each sub-watershed
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Appendix 3

Table 8 Landscape attributes at the whole landscape scale and 50, 100, 200 m of riparian buffer for each sub-watershed
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Appendix 4

Table 9 Multiple Linear Regression Models of water quality versus topographic and land use factors at riparian and sub-watershed scales in the Guadalupe Dam Watershed, Mexico
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Nava-López, M.Z., Diemont, S.A.W., Hall, M. et al. Riparian Buffer Zone and Whole Watershed Influences on River Water Quality: Implications for Ecosystem Services near Megacities. Environ. Process. 3, 277–305 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40710-016-0145-3

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