Response of Water Quality to Landscape Patterns in an Urbanized Watershed in Hangzhou, China

Yu Song, Xiaodong Song and Guofan Shao
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Yu Song: Institute of Remote Sensing and Earth Sciences (IRSE), College of Science, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou 311121, China
Xiaodong Song: College of Geomatics & Municipal Engineering, Zhejiang University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Hangzhou 310018, China
Guofan Shao: Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 14, 1-17

Abstract: Intense human activities and drastic land use changes in rapidly urbanized areas may cause serious water quality degradation. In this study, we explored the effects of land use on water quality from a landscape perspective. We took a rapidly urbanized area in Hangzhou City, China, as a case study, and collected stream water quality data and algae biomass in a field campaign. The results showed that built-up lands had negative effects on water quality and were the primary cause of stream water pollution. The concentration of total phosphorus significantly correlated with the areas of residential, industrial, road, and urban greenspace, and the concentration of chlorophyll a also significantly correlated with the areas of these land uses, except residential land. At a landscape level, the correlation analysis showed that the landscape indices, e.g., dominance, shape complexity, fragmentation, aggregation, and diversity, all had significant correlations with water quality parameters. From the perspective of land use, the redundancy analysis results showed that the percentages of variation in water quality explained by the built-up, forest and wetland, cropland, and bareland decreased in turn. The spatial composition of the built-up lands was the main factor causing stream water pollution, while the shape complexities of the forest and wetland patches were negatively correlated with stream water pollution.

Keywords: land use; water quality; landscape metrics; redundancy analysis; watershed; urbanization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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