Scale Effect of Sloping Landscape Characteristics on River Water Quality in the Upper Reaches of the Si River in East-Central China

Fang Liu, Tianling Qin (), Hao Wang, Shanshan Liu, Hanjiang Nie and Jianwei Wang
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Fang Liu: College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China
Tianling Qin: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing 100038, China
Hao Wang: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing 100038, China
Shanshan Liu: State Key Laboratory of Simulation and Regulation of Water Cycle in River Basin, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (IWHR), Beijing 100038, China
Hanjiang Nie: Key Laboratory for Geographical Process Analysis & Simulation of Hubei Province, School of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China
Jianwei Wang: Yellow River Institute of Hydraulic Research No. 45, Shunhe Road, Jinshui District, Zhengzhou 450003, China

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-16

Abstract: Landscape composition and configuration determine the source of pollutants. They also determine the interception and pollution-holding potential of the surface landscape. Using the upper reaches of the Si River Basin, a major grain-producing region in Shandong province in east-central China, as a case study, this study analyzed the influence of landscape characteristics on river water quality (RWQ) after superimposing topographic slope factors for 2017, and investigated which spatial scale had the strongest influence on RWQ. The landscape indices of three spatial scales (riparian zone, river reach and sub-catchment) and three slope scales (general land, flat ground and steep slope) were extracted. Correlation analysis and redundancy analysis were used to reveal the effects of landscape characteristics on RWQ at different scales. The results indicate that the landscape types were dominated by arable land and construction land in 2017. Landscape indices at different scales were significantly different. The RWQ generally met Class II or III surface water quality standard. Arable land and construction land had a negative impact on RWQ, both of which were “source” landscapes, while forest was a “sink” landscape that can effectively alleviate the deterioration of RWQ. The eight landscape indices which indicated heterogeneity, fragmentation level, landscape diversity, and shape information had different degrees of correlation with NO 3 − -N, NH 4 + -N, COD Mn and BOD 5 . Different scales of landscape features had different correlations with RWQ, with the strongest correlation in the riparian zone, followed by the river reach, and the weakest in the sub-catchment. The influence of steep slope land was higher than that of flat ground land. The study confirmed that landscape structure and configuration had a scale effect on RWQ. It thus has great significance for water resources protection and land use management in the study area.

Keywords: landscape structure; configuration; landscape characteristic index; river water quality; scale effect; slope (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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