Pedosphere 19(6): 765--778, 2009
ISSN 1002-0160/CN 32-1315/P
©2009 Soil Science Society of China
Published by Elsevier B.V. and Science Press
Anthropogenic impact on surface water quality in Taihu Lake region, China
XU Hai1,2, YANG Lin-Zhang2, ZHAO Geng-Mao1, JIAO Jia-Guo1, YIN Shi-Xue3 and LIU Zhao-Pu1
1 College of Resources and Environmental Science, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095 (China)
2 Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008 (China)
3 Agricultural College, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225007 (China)
ABSTRACT
      Taihu Lake region is one of the most industrialized areas in China, and the surface water is progressively susceptible to anthropogenic pollution. The physicochemical parameters of surface water quality were determined at 20 sampling sites in Taihu Lake region, China in spring, summer, autumn, and winter seasons of 2005-2006 to assess the effect of human activities on the surface water quality. Principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) were used to identify characteristics of the water quality in the studied water bodies. PCA extracted the first three principal components (PCs), explaining 80.84% of the total variance of the raw data. Especially, PC1 (38.91%) was associated with NH4-N, total N, soluble reactive phosphorus, and total P. PC2 (22.70%) was characterized by NO3-N and temperature. PC3 (19.23%) was mainly associated with pH and dissolved organic carbon. CA showed that streams were influenced by urban residential subsistence and livestock farming contributed significantly to PC1 throughout the year. The streams influenced by farmland runoff contributed most to PC2 in spring and winter compared with other streams. PC3 was affected mainly by aquiculture in spring, rural residential subsistence in summer, and livestock farming in fall and winter seasons. Further analyses showed that farmlands contributed significantly to nitrogen pollution of Taihu Lake, while urban residential subsistence and livestock farming also polluted water quality of Taihu Lake in rainy season. The results would be helpful for the authorities to take sound actions for an effective management of water quality in Taihu Lake region.
Key Words:  anthropogenic pollution, cluster analysis, non-point pollution, principal component analysis
Citation: Xu, H., Yang, L. Z., Zhao, G. M., Jiao, J. G., Yin, S. X. and Liu, Z. P. 2009. Anthropogenic impact on surface water quality in Taihu Lake region, China. Pedosphere. 19(6): 765-778.
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