Examination of Changes in Selected Nutrient Concentrations from 1988 to 2018 in the Largest Freshwater Lake in China
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 27, Issue 11
Abstract
As the largest freshwater lake in China, Poyang Lake has been influenced by the urbanization process since the 1990s. Therefore, nutrient concentration data of Poyang Lake in the past three decades were selected for spatial and temporal heterogeneity analysis. The entropy-based method (EBM) was used to calculate the contribution weight of three independent driving factors (precipitation, agricultural land area, and urban land area) to nutrient concentrations in Poyang Lake in three different periods (1988–1997, 1998–2007, and 2008–2018). The results of this study showed that the concentrations of and total nitrogen (TN) have similar trends over time, both of which have been increasing in this century, while the total phosphorus (TP) concentration has experienced a decreasing-increasing process. The nutrient concentrations in the eastern part of Poyang Lake were at the highest level in the whole lake after 1998, and this area has good conditions for the formation of algal blooms, which need special control and management. The effect of precipitation on the nutrient concentrations of the lake in the last 30 years was most prominent. The weight of agriculture’s contribution to nutrient concentrations showed a significant upward trend during the first 20 years, and agriculture and urban construction weights remained stable after experiencing opposite changes in the first 20 years. In the future, precipitation in the Poyang Lake basin needs to be of high concern, and agricultural and urban pollution control measures need to be implemented continuously.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Some or all data, models, or codes used during the study were provided by a third party. Direct requests for these materials may be made to the provider as indicated in the Acknowledgments.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51779075 and 52179064), Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (No. 51479064), and Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Province. Acknowledgment is given for the nutrient data support from the Ecological Environment Monitoring Center of Jiangxi Province. In addition, we are grateful to the editors and reviewers who provided constructive review comments to improve this paper.
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Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 27 • Issue 11 • November 2022
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© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Sep 13, 2021
Accepted: Jun 14, 2022
Published online: Sep 10, 2022
Published in print: Nov 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Feb 10, 2023
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