Relationships between pollutant discharge and water quality in the rivers from “better” to “worse” water quality

Abstract

The long-term relationship between pollutant discharge and river water quality of biological/biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) in the Yamato-gawa River, Japan, has been found to be similar to perturbation or dynamic equilibrium change of alternative stable states in the ecosystem fields with a linear relationship as a usual condition. Similar relationships have been observed in short-terms for single precipitation events both in the Richmond River, Australia, and in a mountainous watershed in Japan. On the contrary, nutrient concentrations have not changed in a long-term besides nutrient discharge increases in the Richmond River. In this paper, long-term chronological relationships of annual pollutant discharges and water quality in the Brisbane River, Australia, were investigated based on pollutant discharge estimations and water quality monitoring data as a case study in the “better” water quality river. Effects of precipitation variation were taken into account in the pollutant discharge estimations by introducing precipitation variance coefficient (PVC). Total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) concentrations in the river were found to be improved with fluctuations in the lower Brisbane River Catchment during 1975–2012. Long-term dynamic equilibrium alterations of pollutant discharge and water quality were found for TN and TP at the first time in the Brisbane River. The investigated term was found to be divided into two phases, 1975–2001 and 2001–2012 for TN, and 1975–2007 and 2005–2012 for TP. Both pollutant discharges and pollutant concentrations in the river were smaller in Phase 2 than Phase 1. Based on the relationships in the three rivers, a hypothesis on pollutant discharge and water quality from “better” to “worse” river water environment was presented that rapid and/or excess pollutant discharge increases cause perturbation or dynamic equilibrium alterations with the basal relationships as the linear relationships.