Abstract
Water pollution poses threats to urban environments and subsequently impacts the ecological health and sustainable development of urban areas. Identifying the spatiotemporal variation in non-point sources (NPS) pollution is a prerequisite for improving water quality. This paper aimed to assess the NPS pollution load and then recognized the spatiotemporal characteristics of the pollution sources in a typical urbanized area. A combination model based on land use type was used to simulate the NPS pollution load. The results showed the following: (1) ponds and farmlands had higher pollution production intensities than other land use types, but the intensity and magnitude of pollution emissions were generally greater in urban areas; (2) monthly and annual total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) emissions had the same pattern as rainfall, and TN and TP emissions accounted for 56.2% and 58.0%, respectively, of the total in summer; (3) TN pollution was more serious than TP pollution in the study area, especially in farmlands; (4) urban runoff (UR) and livestock and poultry breeding (LPB) were the main sources of NPS, TN and TP emissions in the study area. If these NPS pollutants cannot be removed from this area, a large amount of freshwater is needed to dilute the current rivers to meet the requirement of the fourth category of China national environmental quality standards for surface water. This problem is serious in the control of polluted rivers in many cities throughout China.
Highlights
China has experienced rapid urbanization since the 1990s [1]
We evaluated the spatiotemporal dynamics of non-point sources (NPS) pollution of the Dafeng
−1 was above 30 tons km year in agricultural areas, e.g., the Sanjiang Plain, Hainan Island and our are comparable to the results reported in these case studies
Summary
Urban population growth and land use changes have led to the degradation of flowing watercourses and the discharge of excessive wastewater [2]. Such water pollution, which threatens drinking water, agricultural irrigation and the ecological landscape, has become a key issue restricting urban development [3]. The Chinese government has regarded urban water pollution with great importance and has invested substantial amounts of energy and money [4,5]. Some cities still face serious water pollution problems, especially rapidly developing cities where land use patterns are changing fast and sewage management and treatment are lacking [6,7,8]. To further control and improve the water quality situation in such cities, accurately recognizing of the sources of pollutants is of considerable significance
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