Assessing how spatial variations of land use pattern affect water quality across a typical urbanized watershed in Beijing, China

Abstract Understanding the relationship between land use patterns and water quality in urbanized areas can provide insight into urban water quality management. In this study, a self-organizing map (SOM) and a linear mixed effects (LME) model were applied to explore the spatiotemporal patterns of nutrients and their relationship with land use characteristics in the highly urbanized Beiyun River watershed. The SOM classified 324 sampling data from 2014 to 2015 at 25 typical river sampling sites into nine clusters, with differences in land use patterns and seasonal (rainy and dry seasons) distributions. In the urbanized upstream reach of the river, concentrations of most pollutants were low, while in downstream sites the concentrations were higher for these pollution parameters. Nitrate-N (NO3−-N), however, exhibited the opposite pattern, probably due to the sources of pollutants and biochemical processes. The explanatory ability of the LME model in the established urbanized area and newly developed area in the upstream portion of the watershed was much better than in the downstream area, probably due to the influence of upstream nutrient contributions and the point source inputs in the downstream area. These statistical results indicated that sewage disposal and the main urbanized land use types were the most important drivers of river contamination. Forest land positively or negatively influenced river water quality depending on its spatial location as well as the water quality indicators. Therefore, sewage disposal as well as spatial non-stationarity of land-use impacts should be taken into consideration to reduce water pollution in the Beiyun River watershed.

[1]  José Barquín,et al.  Modelling the spatial and seasonal variability of water quality for entire river networks: Relationships with natural and anthropogenic factors. , 2016, The Science of the total environment.

[2]  G. Iwatsubo,et al.  Water chemistry in a number of mountainous streams of east Asia , 2000 .

[3]  W. Ouyang,et al.  The washing effect of precipitation on particulate matter and the pollution dynamics of rainwater in downtown Beijing. , 2015, The Science of the total environment.

[4]  A. Astel,et al.  Spatiotemporal dynamics of spring and stream water chemistry in a high-mountain area. , 2011, Environmental pollution.

[5]  Zhenyao Shen,et al.  Impact of landscape pattern at multiple spatial scales on water quality: A case study in a typical urbanised watershed in China , 2015 .

[6]  P Barbieri,et al.  Comparison of self-organizing maps classification approach with cluster and principal components analysis for large environmental data sets. , 2007, Water research.

[7]  N. Grimm,et al.  Nitrogen and phosphorus fluxes from watersheds of the northeast U.S. from 1930 to 2000: Role of anthropogenic nutrient inputs, infrastructure, and runoff , 2015 .

[8]  W. Meng,et al.  Effects of land-use patterns on in-stream nitrogen in a highly-polluted river basin in Northeast China. , 2016, The Science of the total environment.

[9]  Haifeng Jia,et al.  Advances in LID BMPs research and practice for urban runoff control in China , 2013, Frontiers of Environmental Science & Engineering.

[10]  Randy A. Dahlgren,et al.  Land use and land cover influence on water quality in the last free-flowing river draining the western Sierra Nevada, California , 2005 .

[11]  Feng Zhen,et al.  Measuring the impact of urban sprawl on natural landscape pattern of the Western Taihu Lake watershed, China , 2010 .

[12]  Young-Seuk Park,et al.  Review of the Self-Organizing Map (SOM) approach in water resources: Commentary , 2009, Environ. Model. Softw..

[13]  Zhenyao Shen,et al.  Relating landscape characteristics to non-point source pollution in a typical urbanized watershed in the municipality of Beijing , 2014 .

[14]  Soon-Jin Hwang,et al.  Landscape ecological approach to the relationships of land use patterns in watersheds to water quality characteristics , 2009 .

[15]  J. Griffith.  Geographic Techniques and Recent Applications of Remote Sensing to Landscape-Water Quality Studies , 2002 .

[16]  Heejun Chang,et al.  Spatial analysis of water quality trends in the Han River basin, South Korea. , 2008, Water research.

[17]  Teuvo Kohonen,et al.  Self-Organizing Maps , 2010 .

[18]  Sangkyu Park,et al.  Characterizing effects of landscape and morphometric factors on water quality of reservoirs using a self-organizing map , 2014, Environ. Model. Softw..

[19]  Haifeng Jia,et al.  Simulating the spatial dynamics of urban growth with an integrated modeling approach: A case study of Foshan, China , 2017 .

[20]  Z. Ouyang,et al.  Variation in nitrate isotopic signatures in sewage for source apportionment with urbanization: a case study in Beijing, China , 2016, Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

[21]  Zhenyao Shen,et al.  A comparative study of the grain-size distribution of surface dust and stormwater runoff quality on typical urban roads and roofs in Beijing, China , 2016, Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

[22]  J. Tu.  Spatially varying relationships between land use and water quality across an urbanization gradient explored by geographically weighted regression. , 2011 .

[23]  R. Hatano,et al.  Evaluating river water quality through land use analysis and N budget approaches in livestock farming areas. , 2004, The Science of the total environment.

[24]  Qiuwen Chen,et al.  Tracking Nitrogen Sources, Transformation, and Transport at a Basin Scale with Complex Plain River Networks. , 2017, Environmental science & technology.

[25]  A. Louise Heathwaite,et al.  Trends in nutrients , 1996 .

[26]  Ashantha Goonetilleke,et al.  Influence of rainfall and catchment characteristics on urban stormwater quality. , 2013, The Science of the total environment.

[27]  J. Elser,et al.  Long-term accumulation and transport of anthropogenic phosphorus in three river basins , 2015 .

[28]  Susanna T. Y. Tong,et al.  Modeling the relationship between land use and surface water quality. , 2002, Journal of environmental management.

[29]  Hengpeng Li,et al.  Inferring land use and land cover impact on stream water quality using a Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach in the Xitiaoxi River Watershed, China. , 2014, Journal of environmental management.

[30]  V. Simić,et al.  Artificial neural networks as an indicator search engine: The visualization of natural and man-caused taxa variability , 2016 .

[31]  Seo Jin Ki,et al.  Advancing assessment and design of stormwater monitoring programs using a self-organizing map: characterization of trace metal concentration profiles in stormwater runoff. , 2011, Water research.

[32]  J. N. Fernandes,et al.  Key issues for sustainable urban stormwater management. , 2012, Water research.

[33]  T. Wade,et al.  Linking Land Cover and Water Quality in New York City’S Water Supply Watersheds , 2005, Environmental monitoring and assessment.

[34]  Huasheng Hong,et al.  New insight into the correlations between land use and water quality in a coastal watershed of China: Does point source pollution weaken it? , 2016, The Science of the total environment.

[35]  Yongping Yuan,et al.  Sediment and total phosphorous contributors in Rock River watershed. , 2014, Journal of environmental management.

[36]  B. W. Yap,et al.  Comparisons of various types of normality tests , 2011 .

[37]  Romeo Gilbuena,et al.  Clustering spatio-seasonal hydrogeochemical data using self-organizing maps for groundwater quality assessment in the Red River Delta, Vietnam , 2015 .

[38]  Wei Wu,et al.  Effect of land use types on stream water quality under seasonal variation and topographic characteristics in the Wei River basin, China , 2016 .

[39]  I. Schmidt,et al.  Leaching of nitrate from temperate forests effects of air pollution and forest management , 2006 .

[40]  Xiaoyuan Yan,et al.  Linking river nutrient concentrations to land use and rainfall in a paddy agriculture-urban area gradient watershed in southeast China. , 2016, The Science of the total environment.

[41]  D. Cox,et al.  An Analysis of Transformations , 1964 .

[42]  Chen Li.  Location-weighted landscape contrast index: a scale independent approach for landscape pattern evaluation based on “Source-Sink” ecological processes , 2003 .

[43]  Li Ling-jun.  Surface Water Quality of Beiyun Rivers Basin and the Analysis of Acting Factors for the Recent Ten Years , 2012 .

[44]  J. Adamowski,et al.  Assessing the Impacts of Four Land Use Types on the Water Quality of Wetlands in Japan , 2013, Water Resources Management.

[45]  J. Tu,et al.  Examining spatially varying relationships between land use and water quality using geographically weighted regression I: model design and evaluation. , 2008, The Science of the total environment.

[46]  Kati W. Migliaccio,et al.  Contribution of Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluents to Nutrient Dynamics in Aquatic Systems: A Review , 2009, Environmental management.

[47]  Thomas Villmann,et al.  Topology preservation in self-organizing feature maps: exact definition and measurement , 1997, IEEE Trans. Neural Networks.

[48]  Huijuan Liu,et al.  Sources and Pathways of Nutrients in the Semi-Arid Region of Beijing–Tianjin, China , 2012, Environmental science & technology.

[49]  Donald W. Bouldin,et al.  A Cluster Separation Measure , 1979, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence.

[50]  Jianbo Shen,et al.  Sustainable phosphorus management and the need for a long-term perspective: the legacy hypothesis. , 2014, Environmental science & technology.

[51]  Guohe Huang,et al.  Building channel networks for flat regions in digital elevation models , 2009 .