How climate change and land-use evolution relates to the non-point source pollution in a typical watershed of China

Abstract

The water quality of Le 'an River Watershed (LRW) is crucial to the water environmental safety of Poyang Lake, especially the concentration of nitrogen and phosphorus. The effect of climate and land use change on watershed water quality has always been under the attention of local managers. More importantly, the lack of detailed studies on climate and land use impact on river water quality has prevented sustainable water security management in the LRW. Therefore, this study aimed to quantify the weight of climate and land use on nutrient loss in the LRW, respectively. We divided the historical period (1990–2020) into six scenarios and a baseline scenario. TN and TP losses in the watershed were simulated using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT), and the weight of climate and land use were quantified in overall, by period, and by region. The results showed that the weight of climate was greatly higher than land use with values around 90%. However, the weight of land use had a positive cumulative effect in a certain period, and its influence could not be neglected. The climate in all scenarios led to a reduction in nutrient loss, while land use was found to slightly increase the nutrient loss yield. In addition to, unique regional topographic features, urbanization rates, and climatic conditions could cause spatial heterogeneity in the climatic and land use weights.