Journal of Ecology and Rural Environment ›› 2015, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (1): 59-68.doi: 10.11934/j.issn.1673-4831.2015.01.009

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Impact of Landscape Pattern of Riparian Buffers on Water Quality in the Upper Reaches of Huntai River Basin

LI  Yan-Li, LI  Yan-Fen, XU  Zong-Xue, GUAN  Zhong-Mei   

  1. Institute of Resources & Environment,Henan Polytechnic University
  • Received:2014-05-15 Revised:2014-07-14 Online:2015-01-25 Published:2015-04-15
  • Contact: LI Yan-Fen Institute of Chemical and Environment Engineering E-mail:yy16036551@163.com

Abstract: Out of the upper reaches water system of the Huntai River, encompassing 31 water quality monitoring stations, riparian buffer zones of 5 different scales were delineated with ArcGIS, and 8 landscape indices of the buffer zones at the type and landscape levels were calculated using the FRACSTATS software. Spatial analysis, Correlation analysis and redundancy analysis were performed to define relationships of landscape patterns of the riparian buffer zones different in width with water quality from the aspects of number of landscapes in composition and space pattern of the landscape. Results show that the impact of a landscape pattern on water quality varied with the width of the riparian buffer zone. Landscape pattern of a riparian buffer zone 300m in width can well explain 48.5% of the variation of water quality. In riparian buffer zones 50 and 100m in width, the landscape number composition indices could better explain spatial variation of water quality than the landscape space pattern indices, and the former could explain 16% and 18% of the variation of water quality, while the latter could do 11% and 6%, and up to 13% and 12% in the case of upland field, because upland field was the dominant landscape in riparian buffer zones ≤100 m in width. However, in riparian buffer zones, 300, 500 or 1000m in width, things went reversely, with the latter exceeding former in explaining the variation of water quality. The latter could  explain 25%, 20% and 23%, while the former 10%, 11.3% and 14.3%. While width of the riparian buffer zone was ≥300m,the impacts of landscape space pattern indices on water quality increased with width of the riparian buffer zone. Dominant landscape space pattern indices include PD, CONTAG, SHDI and SHEI at landscape level, and forest fragmentation at the type level.

Key words: landscape pattern, space scale, water quality, riparian buffer zone, Huntai River basin

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