Analysis of non-point and point source pollution in China: case study in Shima Watershed in Guangdong Province

China economy has been rapidly increased since 1978. Rapid economic growth led to fast growth of fertilizer and pesticide consumption. A significant portion of fertilizers and pesticides entered the water and caused water quality degradation. At the same time, rapid economic growth also caused more and more point source pollution discharge into the water. Eutrophication has become a major threat to the water bodies. Worsening environment problems forced governments to take measures to control water pollution. We extracted land cover from Landsat TM images; calculated point source pollution with export coefficient method; then SWAT model was run to simulate non-point source pollution. We found that the annual TP loads from industry pollution into rivers are 115.0 t in the entire watershed. Average annual TP loads from each sub-basin ranged from 0 to 189.4 ton. Higher TP loads of each basin from livestock and human living mainly occurs in the areas where they are far from large towns or cities and the TP loads from industry are relatively low. Mean annual TP loads that delivered to the streams was 246.4 tons and the highest TP loads occurred in north part of this area, and the lowest TP loads is mainly distributed in middle part. Therefore, point source pollution has much high proportion in this area and governments should take measures to control point source pollution.

[1]  Richard A. Smith,et al.  Natural background concentrations of nutrients in streams and rivers of the conterminous United States. , 2003, Environmental science & technology.

[2]  D. Norse Non-Point Pollution from Crop Production: Global,Regional and National Issues , 2005 .

[3]  Jianfang Hu,et al.  Increased eutrophication offshore Hong Kong, China during the past 75 years: evidence from high-resolution sedimentary records , 2008 .

[4]  Jikun Huang,et al.  Training programs and in-the-field guidance to reduce China's overuse of fertilizer without hurting profitability , 2008, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation.

[5]  Jinhui Wang,et al.  Occurrence and potential risks of harmful algal blooms in the East China Sea. , 2009, The Science of the total environment.

[6]  F. Hao,et al.  Long-term vegetation landscape pattern with non-point source nutrient pollution in upper stream of Yellow River basin , 2010 .

[7]  B. Hill,et al.  A Synoptic Survey of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in Tributary Streams and Great Rivers of the Upper Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio River Basins , 2011 .

[8]  Shengtian Yang,et al.  Coupling Xinanjiang model and SWAT to simulate agricultural non-point source pollution in Songtao watershed of Hainan, China , 2011 .

[9]  Liangjie Xin,et al.  Temporal and regional variations of China’s fertilizer consumption by crops during 1998–2008 , 2012, Journal of Geographical Sciences.

[10]  Jikun Huang,et al.  Impacts of training on farmers' nitrogen use in maize production in Shandong, China , 2012, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation.