Abstract
The effects of anthropogenic land use on the water quality of reservoir-based water sources are understudied. We trained a self-organizing map (SOM) to measure the spatial pattern of nutrients over the course of a year in 61 reservoirs located in eastern China. In the linear regression model and one-way analyses of variance, we found that water quality was influenced by period of the year (flood, low, and normal periods based on rainfall conditions) and reservoir altitude (plains vs. mountains). Our results indicated that land use metrics measured in aquatic–terrestrial interfaces significantly influenced the water quality of reservoirs. The land use intensity (LUI) and the proportion of construction land had a positive correlation with ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) and chemical oxygen demand (CODMn) concentrations, and redundancy analysis indicated that the percent of landscape (PLAND) represented by construction land was positively correlated with CODMn, NH3-N, total phosphorus (TP), and total nitrogen (TN) concentrations. The proportion of cropland was not correlated with any water quality property except for CODMn concentration. The total explained variance for water quality was highest when the scale was large (the area defined by a 1500 m radius around the reservoir), indicating that management which ensures water safety should be carried out at this scale.
Highlights
Freshwater lakes, ponds, reservoirs, rivers, springs, bogs, and wetlands are important parts of Earth’s aquatic ecosystems [1]
Our results revealed that land use planning of the interface at different scales should be adapted to local conditions and that human urban development on larger scales (1500 m from the reservoir) should be reduced
Our findings revealed that the elevation of sampling sites influenced the water quality throughout the different seasons
Summary
Freshwater lakes, ponds, reservoirs, rivers, springs, bogs, and wetlands are important parts of Earth’s aquatic ecosystems [1]. The water quality of freshwater ecosystems can be affected by natural factors (e.g., river flow, geological topography, and rainfall intensity and frequency) [5] and human activities (e.g., water extraction, urbanization, and sewage discharge) [6] which lead to the accumulation of external inputs and pollutants, such as changes in nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations. These can be indicators for the community structure diversity and productivity of freshwater ecosystems [7]. There are still relatively few studies on the effects of LULC on reservoir-based urban water sources [15,16]
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