Effects of land use types on surface water quality across an anthropogenic disturbance gradient in the upper reach of the Hun River, Northeast China

Abstract

Surface water quality is vulnerable to pollution due to human activities. The upper reach of the Hun River is an important water source that supplies 52 % of the storage capacity of the Dahuofang Reservoir, the largest reservoir for drinking water in Northeast China, which is suffering from various human-induced changes in land use, including deforestation, reclamation/farming, urbanization and mine exploitation. To investigate the impacts of land use types on surface water quality across an anthropogenic disturbance gradient at a local scale, 11 physicochemical parameters (pH, dissolved oxygen [DO], turbidity, oxygen redox potential, conductivity, biochemical oxygen demand [BOD5], chemical oxygen demand [COD], total nitrogen [TN], total phosphorus [TP], NO(3)(-)N, and NH(4)(+)-N) of water from 12 sampling sites along the upper reach of the Hun River were monitored monthly during 2009-2010. The sampling sites were classified into four groups (natural, near-natural, more disturbed, and seriously disturbed). The water quality exhibited distinct spatial and temporal characteristics; conductivity, TN, and NO(3)(-)-N were identified as key parameters indicating the water quality variance. The forest and farmland cover types played significant roles in determining the surface water quality during the low-flow, high-flow, and mean-flow periods based on the results of a stepwise linear regression. These results may provide incentive for the local government to consider sustainable land use practices for water conservation.

Utility of soil linear alkylbenzenes to assess regional anthropogenic influences with special reference to atmospheric transport

“…The magnitude of sewage pollution (and therefore anthropogenic impact) was also strongly associated with land-use types, with heavier sewage contamination in anthropogenic landscapes than in natural landscapes (Su et al, 2011;Wang et al, 2013).…”

Forest cover and water quality in tropical agricultural watersheds

“…Turbidity and suspended material represent the particles in the water, then it was expected that those parameters were correlated, as found by Wang et al (2013) and (Table 2 and Figure 3), indicating the water degradation from residential areas without sewage collection and excess of fertilizer use in agricultural lands (Calijuri et al, 2015;Gallo et al, 2015;Sharma and Sharma, 2015;Giri and Qiu, 2016).…”

“…The forest cover, both for watershed and for riparian zone, was related to good water quality, and it plays a major role in keeping water clean in different watersheds in the world (FAO, 2008;Wang et al, 2013;Oliveira et al, 2016). Precisely, because sediments, nutrients, and fecal coliforms were positively related to the agricultural and urban uses and negatively to forest cover.…”

“…For example, Knee and Encalada (2014) found that watersheds that have streams in protected forests tended to have better water quality than areas which are not under protection. Wang et al (2013) associated forestland to good water quality comparing to farm and urban lands. also found that water quality parameters are strongly positively correlated with the proportion of forest areas.…”

“…However, non-point sources pollution is tough to identify due to the complex and diffuse nature of the interaction between hydrologic and landscape patterns (Chiwa et al, 2012). Also, the relationship between land use/land cover (LULC) and water quality can occur at different spatial scales, from local to regional effects (Wang et al, 2013;.…”