Increasing human activity shifts the key spatial scale of landscape patterns on water quality from sub-basins to riparian zones

Jiawei Wen; Peng Wang; Yuanyang She; Mingjun Ding; Hua Zhang; Gaoxiang Huang; Minghua Nie

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177504

Increasing human activity shifts the key spatial scale of landscape patterns on water quality from sub-basins to riparian zones

Sci Total Environ. 2024 Nov 10:177504. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177504. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Jiawei Wen¹, Peng Wang², Yuanyang She¹, Mingjun Ding¹, Hua Zhang¹, Gaoxiang Huang¹, Minghua Nie¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, Jiangxi, China; Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Ministry of Education, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, Jiangxi, China.
² School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, Jiangxi, China; Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Ministry of Education, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, Jiangxi, China. Electronic address: wangpengjlu@jxnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 39532181
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.177504

Abstract

The relationship between landscape patterns and water quality has been extensively studied, yet the understanding of how human activity modulates the spatial scale effects of landscape patterns on water quality remains limited. Here, we investigated the water quality and landscape patterns of three rivers in the Poyang Lake Basin, China, subjected to different intensities of human activity, and analyzed the extent to which water quality parameters were influenced by human activity to unravel the spatial scale effects and identify critical landscape metrics that significantly influence water quality. The results showed that the influence of riparian zone landscape patterns on water quality progressively exceeded that of sub-basin landscape patterns as the intensity of human activity increased. For water quality parameters that were minimally affected by human activity, the influence of sub-basin landscape patterns slightly exceeded that of riparian zone landscape patterns at different intensities of human activity (differences were 0.63 %, 4.25 % and 7.65 %, respectively). Conversely, for water quality parameters significantly affected by human activity, the landscape patterns of the riparian zone had a significantly greater influence than the sub-basin landscape patterns (differences were 5.90 %, 13.00 % and 17.86 % respectively). Furthermore, the discrepancy between the influence of riparian zone and sub-basin landscape patterns on water quality increased with increasing intensity of human activity, while the overall influence of landscape patterns on water quality showed a decreasing trend (decreasing from 60.35 % to 39.10 %). In addition, the proportions of construction land, farmland, and forestland, and the fragmentation of grassland, were identified as critical landscape metrics that significantly influenced water quality at different intensities of human activity. This study revealed that different intensities of human activity were key factors influencing the spatial scale effects of landscape patterns on water quality.

Keywords: Human activity; Landscape pattern; Spatial scale effects; Water quality.