Spatiotemporal variations and determinants of stream nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations from a watershed in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, China

Abstract

Socioeconomic development induced nonpoint source (NPS) pollution has aroused an increasing concern, however, most of the previous studies were concentrated on the impacts of environmental determinants. Here, total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) concentrations from 13 sampling sites were collected biweekly from January 2018 to October 2021, and 26 potential factors including environmental and socioeconomic were considered in the Wangjiaqiao watershed of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, China. Impacts of these factors on TN and TP were evaluated by partial least squares regression (PLSR) model. It showed that average TN and TP concentrations in wet seasons (TN,14.68 mg L⁻¹; TP, 0.113 mg L⁻¹) were higher than that in dry seasons (TN, 11.73 mg L⁻¹; TP, 0.087 mg L⁻¹). Additionally, the TN concentrations were greater in downstream than upstream, however, the highest TP concentrations were found in the middle of the watershed. The optimal PLSR model explained 69.6%, 73.1% and 66.1% of the variance in TN concentration, as well as 65.7%, 79.5% and 67.4% of the variance in TP concentration during the annual, dry and wet seasons, respectively. Moreover, TN was primarily influenced by topographic wetness index, planting structure, interspersion and juxtaposition index, orchard proportion, nitrogen fertilization, per capita income, and catchment area, whereas TP was mainly controlled by slope gradient, topographic wetness index, hypsometric integral, interspersion and juxtaposition index, and population density. Collectively, environmental factors had greater impacts on the TN and TP concentrations than socioeconomic factors. Raising farmers' awareness of the hazards of NPS pollution is beneficial to watershed NPS pollution control.