Abstract
Understanding the influence of land use/land cover (LULC) on water quality is pertinent to sustainable water management. This study aimed at assessing the spatio-seasonal variation of water quality in relation to land use types in Lake Muhazi, Rwanda. The National Sanitation Foundation Water Quality Index (NSF-WQI) was used to evaluate the anthropogenically-induced water quality changes. In addition to Principal Components Analysis (PCA), a Cluster Analysis (CA) was applied on 12-clustered sampling sites and the obtained NSF-WQI. Lastly, the Partial Least Squares Path Modelling (PLS-PM) was used to estimate the nexus between LULC, water quality parameters, and the obtained NSF-WQI. The results revealed a poor water quality status at the Mugorore and Butimba sites in the rainy season, then at Mugorore and Bwimiyange sites in the dry season. Furthermore, PCA displayed a sample dispersion based on seasonality while NSF-WQI’s CA hierarchy grouped the samples corresponding to LULC types. Finally, the PLS-PM returned a strong positive correlation (+ 0.831) between LULCs and water quality parameters in the rainy season but a negative correlation coefficient (− 0.542) in the dry season, with great influences of cropland on the water quality parameters. Overall, this study concludes that the lake is seasonally influenced by anthropogenic activities, suggesting sustainable land-use management decisions, such as the establishment and safeguarding protection belts in the lake vicinity.
Highlights
Understanding the influence of land use/land cover (LULC) on water quality is pertinent to sustainable water management
The results showed that the amount of turbidity (167.5 NTU) was high at the S09 (Mugorore) in the rainy season and was low (3.64 NTU) at S04 (Butimba) in the dry season
total solids (TS) was high at S09 (Mugorore) with 13 mg/L in the rainy season and low (1.8 mg/L) at the S06 (Gasharu) in the dry season
Summary
Understanding the influence of land use/land cover (LULC) on water quality is pertinent to sustainable water management. This study concludes that the lake is seasonally influenced by anthropogenic activities, suggesting sustainable land-use management decisions, such as the establishment and safeguarding protection belts in the lake vicinity. Water resources and their quality are crucial to human life[1]. Compared to point-sources that have currently been effectively managed, the non-point source pollutants from various land-use types, mostly agriculture and fluvial waters are the foremost source of water quality change[6,7]. It is necessary to consider the spatial scales from local to catchment scale for an effective examination of LULC impacts on water quality
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