Spatial–Temporal Variations of Water Quality in Urban Rivers after Small Sluices Construction: A Case in Typical Regions of the Taihu Lake Basin

Feng Lan, Wang Haisen and Yan Yan ()
Additional contact information
Feng Lan: College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China
Wang Haisen: College of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China
Yan Yan: Taihu Water Pollution Prevention and Control Research Center, Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Environmental Science, Nanjing 210042, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 19, 1-12

Abstract: Urban river pollution is considered a ‘necessary evil’ consequence of disproportionate developmental expansion in metropolises. Unprecedented expansion and anthropic activities lead to the deterioration of urban rivers with municipal and industrial sewage. The construction of sluices is one of the irrefutable parts of the process. In order to prevent floods and drought, many cities build sluices and dams in rivers to balance water quantity in different seasons. To explore the change characteristics of the water quality in urban rivers after the construction of sluices and dams, the change in the total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) concentrations upstream and downstream of rivers was investigated under the condition of sluices closure in Wuxi. According to the results, when the sluices were closed, the pollutants of TP and TN would accumulate upstream in rivers, which caused the water quality in the upper reaches to be worse than that in the lower reaches. Specifically, the TN and TP concentrations downstream of urban rivers in Wuxi were approximately 14.42% and 13.80% lower than those upstream when the sluices were closed. Additionally, the water quality in urban rivers was usually better in summer and autumn than in the other seasons, showing obvious seasonality after the construction of the sluices. The research will provide a theoretical basis for future sluice operation and the water resources management of urban rivers.

Keywords: sluices and dams; urban rivers; water pollution; Taihu Lake; total phosphorus; total nitrogen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12453/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/19/12453/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:19:p:12453-:d:929722

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().