The Impacts of Spatiotemporal Landscape Changes on Water Quality in Shenzhen, China

Zhenhuan Liu and Haiyan Yang
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Zhenhuan Liu: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Urbanization and Geo-simulation, School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China
Haiyan Yang: College of Water Conservancy and Civil Engineering, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China

IJERPH, 2018, vol. 15, issue 5, 1-14

Abstract: The urban landscape in China has changed rapidly over the past four decades, which has led to various environmental consequences, such as water quality degradation at the regional scale. To improve water restoration strategies and policies, this study assessed the relationship between water quality and landscape change in Shenzhen, China, using panel regression analysis. The results show that decreases in natural and semi-natural landscape compositions have had significant negative effects on water quality. Landscape composition and configuration changes accounted for 39–58% of the variation in regional water quality degradation. Additionally, landscape fragmentation indices, such as patch density (PD) and the number of patches (NP), are important indicators of the drivers of water quality degradation. PD accounted for 2.03–5.44% of the variability in water quality, while NP accounted for −1.63% to −4.98% of the variability. These results indicate that reducing landscape fragmentation and enhancing natural landscape composition at the watershed scale are vital to improving regional water quality. The study findings suggest that urban landscape optimization is a promising strategy for mitigating urban water quality degradation, and the results can be used in policy making for the sustainable development of the hydrological environment in rapidly urbanizing areas.

Keywords: landscape changes; water quality; rapid urbanization; panel regression analysis; Shenzhen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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