Impacts of Land Use on Surface Water Quality Using Self-Organizing Map in Middle Region of the Yellow River Basin, China

Liang Pei, Chunhui Wang, Yiping Zuo, Xiaojie Liu () and Yanyan Chi ()
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Liang Pei: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Chunhui Wang: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Yiping Zuo: Foreign Environmental Cooperation Center, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Beijing 100035, China
Xiaojie Liu: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Yanyan Chi: Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning, Beijing 100102, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 17, 1-14

Abstract: The Yellow River is one of the most important water sources in China, and its surrounding land use affected by human activities is an important factor in water quality pollution. To understand the impact of land use types on water quality in the Sanmenxia section of the Yellow River, the water quality index (WQI) was used to evaluate the water quality. A self-organizing map (SOM) was used for clustering analysis of water quality indicators, and the relationship between surface water quality and land use types was further analyzed by redundancy analysis (RDA). The results showed that WQI values ranged from 82.60 to 507.27, and the highest value was the sampling site S3, whose water quality grade was “Likely not suitable for drinking”, mainly polluted by agricultural non-point sources ammonia nitrogen pollution. SOM clustered the sampling sites into 4 groups according to the water quality indicators, the main influencing factors for different groups were analyzed and explored in more depth in relation to land use types, suggesting that surface water quality was significantly connected with the proportion of land use types at the watershed scale in the interpretation of water quality change. The negative impact of cropland on surface water quality was greater than that of other land use types, and vegetation showed a greater positive impact on surface water quality than other land uses. The results provide evidence for water environment conservation based on land use in the watershed.

Keywords: water quality; land use; self-organizing map; redundancy analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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