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Abstract: Recently, increasing nutrient 共i.e., nitrogen and phosphorus兲 concentrations have been observed in the surface water of many
countries and this nonpoint source 共NPS兲 pollution has become an important factor in the deterioration of water quality in the upper reach
of the Yangtze River Basin. In this paper, the NPS pollution loads in the upper reach of Yangtze River Basin in the year 2000 were
estimated using export coefficient model and remote sensing techniques. The spatial distributions of the NPS loads within the watershed
were then displayed using geographical information system. Results indicated that the total nitrogen load was 1.947⫻ 106 t and the total
phosphorus load was 8.364⫻ 104 t. Important source areas for the nutrients were croplands in the Jinsha R. and Jialing R. watershed, as
well as the Chongqing municipality.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲0733-9429共2009兲135:9共698兲
CE Database subject headings: River basins; Nonpoint pollution; Water pollution; China; Coefficients; Remote sensing; Geographic
information systems.
Introduction water quality research 共Sharpley 1995; Centner et al. 1999; Borin
et al. 2005兲. However, NPS pollution is difficult to study because
Surface water deterioration in many countries during the past few it requires significant legislative and infrastructural changes at the
decades has resulted from both point and nonpoint source 共NPS兲 national level prior to investment 共Dzikiewicz 2000兲. Implement-
pollution 共Ritter and Shirmohammadi 2001兲. In the United States, ing pollution prevention methods require a clear understanding of
NPS pollution has been identified as the leading cause of de- the impacts of nutrient sources on stream water quality at a wa-
graded water quality for surface waters 共Harbor 1999兲. An in- tershed level.
creased global awareness of the effects of NPS pollution on In the last two decades, NPS pollution has become a stimulus
surface waters via chemical transport in runoff has simulated for research that resulted in the development of several computer
simulation models and modeling techniques 共Leon et al. 2001兲.
1 To date, there are numerous studies using mathematic models to
Lecturer, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and
estimate NPS pollution loads. Computer simulation models have
Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing
100875, People’s Republic of China 共corresponding author兲. E-mail: been useful tools for the analysis of watershed processes and their
liurm@bnu.edu.cn interactions, as well as for the development and assessment of
2
Professor, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and watershed management scenarios 共He 2003兲.
Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing More recently, researchers have coupled geographical infor-
100875, People’s Republic of China. mation system 共GIS兲 with hydrologic models within the Windows
3
Professor, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and environment for PCs, e.g., better assessment science integrating
Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing point and NPSs by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
100875, People’s Republic of China. 共Lahlou et al. 1998兲, and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool by
4
Emeritus Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Virginia,
Luzio et al. 共2002兲. Such models with GIS interfaces usually ad-
Charlottesville, VA 22903.
5
Doctorate Candidate, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Simu- dress issues of data processing and visualization, tool coordina-
lation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal tion, and user friendliness, thereby significantly improving the
Univ., Beijing 100875, People’s Republic of China. applicability of hydrologic models.
6
Ph.D. Candidate, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Simulation However, such physically-based models have certain disad-
and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal Univ., vantages 共Worrall and Burt 1999b兲. These disadvantages can be
Beijing 100875, People’s Republic of China. summarized as: 共1兲 a dependence of site-specific parameters; 共2兲
7
Graduate Student, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Simula- model parameters require additional effort and expense to mea-
tion and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal sure; and 共3兲 physically based models may impose upon the data
Univ., Beijing 100875, People’s Republic of China.
an incomplete theory. An alternative to the physically based ap-
Note. This manuscript was submitted on July 7, 2006; approved on
April 24, 2009; published online on August 14, 2009. Discussion period
proach is to use an empirical approach, especially for manage-
open until February 1, 2010; separate discussions must be submitted for ment purposes. Site managers prefer an effective, convenient, and
individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Hydraulic Engi- relatively simple model to estimate the annual NPS loading. Ex-
neering, Vol. 135, No. 9, September 1, 2009. ©ASCE, ISSN 0733-9429/ port coefficient models have been developed for modeling the
2009/9-698–704/$25.00. export of nitrates and phosphates from watersheds under the as-
sumption that land uses, such as cropland, are major controls on reach of the Yangtze River Basin is a mountainous region. The
nutrient transport at the watershed level 共Johnes 1996; Mattikalli proportion of cropland of this area is only 15%, more than half of
and Richards 1996; Worrall and Burt 1999a; Jones et al. 2001; which is on hilly land 共Zhong et al. 1992兲.
Ierodiaconou et al. 2005兲. The current state of the water quality of the Yangtze River is
In this study, an export coefficient model, coupled with remote mainly influenced by soil erosion and NPS pollution resulting
sensing 共RS兲 and GIS was used to predict the loads of total nitro- from land cover change 共Zhang et al. 2003兲. During the period of
gen 共TN兲 and total phosphorus 共TP兲 from the upper reach of the 1970–2000, cropland acreage increased markedly. As a conse-
Yangtze River Basin in the year 2000. The spatial estimation and quence, river health across the region became generally poor.
regional analysis of each watershed and province in the Yangtze Current land use is predominantly agricultural, forest and pasture.
River Basin were also carried out in this paper. Increased nutrient loads have been linked to the transformation of
natural land cover 共such as forest and pasture兲 to anthropogenic
land cover 共such as cropland兲. Land conversion has resulted in the
Study Area and Data Description widespread application of nutrients in the form of fertilizers to
assist pasture and crop growth with much of the excess fertilizers
Study Area contributing to the nutrient loads of the rivers.
The Yangtze River is the longest river in China and third longest
in the world. The headwaters of the Yangtze River are situated in Data Description
the Kunlun Mountains of southwestern Qinghai province at an
elevation of about 4,800 m. The upper reach of the Yangtze River The export coefficient model described in the next section re-
extends 4500 km from Riverhead to Yichang City, encompassing quires mainly data pertaining to land use. Data regarding popula-
an area of about 1 million km2. The study area is includes the tion, cattle, pigs, sheep, and poultry are also needed. Table 1
watersheds of the Jinsha River, Mintuo River, Jialing River, Wu presents the available data for the study area and the processing
River, and the upper region of main stream 共Fig. 1兲. This region required for analysis.
contains the provinces of Gansu, Guizhou, Hubei, Qinghai, Landsat 7 ETM+ 共30 m resolution兲 satellite imagery was
Shanxi, Sichuan 共SC兲, and Yunnan, as well as the Tibet autono- analyzed to produce a current 共2000兲 land use data set for the
mous region and the district of Chongqing municipality 共CQ兲 upper reach of the Yangtze River Basin. Ground referenced data
共Fig. 2兲. The population of this area is about 0.163 billion 共Wang were collected using differential global positioning systems
et al. 2003兲. 共GPS兲 共1–2 m accuracy兲 for classification and error assessment. A
The eastern part of this study area contains the SC basin and supervised classification technique 共ENVI 4.0兲 using the maxi-
experiences a subtropical and humid climate. The western part of mum likelihood classifier was conducted for the full scene, fol-
the study area is considered the highland area and experiences lowed by a rigorous error assessment using independent ground
frequent fog with intense sunlight, but low temperatures. The an- data and aerial survey information. Interpreted land use of the
nual rainfall in this area is 1,000–1,400 mm. Most of the upper upper reach of the Yangtze River Basin was classified into crop-
land, grassland, woodland, city land, water land, and wasteland, America in 1970s and mainly used to estimate the relationship of
which is shown in Fig. 3 共Shi et al. 2002; Liu et al. 2003a,b兲. land use to lake eutrophication 共Jorgenson 1980; Reckhow and
Digital elevation model 共DEM兲 data were analyzed to produce Simpson 1980; Beaulac and Reckhow 1982兲. The original model
vector data for the watershed, subwatershed, and stream network assumed one general export coefficient for all agricultural land.
for the upper reach of the Yangtze River using the hydrological This has been found to be insensitive to the spatial heterogeneities
model analysis method of ArcGIS 9.0. The district map of the in land use, stocking densities, and land management practices
upper reach of the Yangtze River was created using the geopro- inherent to agricultural systems, thus limiting the degree to which
cessing method with the digital data of district. the model can respond to the ongoing expansion and intensifica-
The data were projected with the Albers conical equal area tion in agriculture. The single agricultural coefficient also inhib-
projection during the data processing. The parameters of the pro- ited the possibility of using the model to assess the effects of
jection were the standard parallel latitudes of 25 ° N and 47 ° N, spatial relocation of agricultural nutrient sources within the wa-
the central meridian longitude is 105 ° E, the original projection tershed on water quality 共Johnes 1996兲. The original model was
latitude is 0. modified to account for a number of nutrient export factors, such
as the inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus to the watershed, human
Approach settlements, land management practices, and livestock 共Johnes
and O’Sullivan 1989; Johnes 1990; Heathwaite et al. 1990兲. The
modified model is as follows:
Export Coefficient Model
n
Nutrient loadings were estimated using a model based on the
export coefficient approach, which was first developed in North L= 兺
i=1
E iA i + p 共1兲
Fig. 3. Land use of the upper reach of the Yangtze River 共2000兲
Ei is the key parameter, which determines the amount of nutrient ers in the relational database component of the GIS were used in
loading from the various NPSs. The factors which affect the ex- the model calculations, which required a large number of repeti-
port coefficient in a watershed mainly include topography, hydrol- tive operations for the model computations. Therefore, special
ogy, climate, land use, soil type, vegetation, and management GIS routines using the Arc Macro Language were developed to
practices 共Li and Zhuang 2003兲. There have been many studies carry out these operations automatically.
regarding export coefficients 共Vollenweider 1968; Cooke 1976;
Reckhow and Simpson 1980; Gostick 1982; Heal et al. 1982;
Soderlund et al. 1982; Royal Society 1983; Cai et al. 2004兲 and it Results and Analysis
is necessary to obtain from the literature the appropriate export
coefficient for different land uses. The export coefficients used in
this application of the model are presented in Table 2. Spatial Simulation of NPS Pollution Load
The spatial distribution maps of TN and TP loads for the research
Model Computations area in 2000 were obtained using the export coefficient table
共Table 2兲, land use, population, and domestic animal numbers
Computations involved in the export coefficient model were per-
共Fig. 4兲 for the upper reach of the Yangtze River Basin. It can be
formed using GIS, which was essential in this study. GIS pro-
seen from Fig. 4 that TN and TP loads for the upper reach of the
vided the appropriate technology for the input, storage,
manipulation, and analysis of large volumes of data at different Yangtze River Basin mainly originated from the SC Basin, while
scales. A major input parameter to this model was the areal extent loads in the headwaters were correspondingly low. This is due to
of different nutrient source. Attributes attached to the digital lay- the concentrated areas of farming and rural population in the
upper reach of the Yangtze River Basin. In the headwaters, there
were widely distributed areas of woodland and grassland, so the
Table 2. Export Coefficient of the Upper Reach of the Yangtze River nutrient output is relatively low.
Basin
Coefficient Coefficient Result Analysis
Nutrient source 共unit兲 共TN兲 共TP兲
Cropland 共t / km−2兲 2.900 0.090 Analysis of TN and TP Load
Woodland 共t / km−2兲 0.238 0.015 From Fig. 4, the TN and TP loads for the upper reach of the
Grassland 共t / km−2兲 1.000 0.020 Yangtze River Basin in 2000 were 1.947⫻ 106 and 8.365
City land 共t / km−2兲 1.100 0.024 ⫻ 104 t, respectively. Considering that the research area was
Wasteland 共t / km−2兲 1.490 0.051 more than 1 ⫻ 106 km2, load loss of NPS pollution should be
People 共t / ca⫻ 104兲 19.547 2.142
considered in the process of occurring, entering water body and
transporting to Yichang monitoring station. According to the
Cattle 共t / ca⫻ 104兲 113.715 2.179
basin loss formula presented by Behrendt 共1996兲, the monitor
Pigs 共t / ca⫻ 104兲 26.667 1.417
value of Yichang monitoring station was 20% of NPS pollution
Sheep 共t / ca⫻ 104兲 15.134 0.450
load, which generated in the upper reach of the Yangtze River
Poultry 共t / ca⫻ 104兲 0.459 0.054
Basin. Thus, the estimated loads of TN and TP at the Yichang
Fig. 4. Spatial distribution of NPS pollution loads in the upper reach of the Yangtze River Basin 共2000兲
monitoring section were 3.895⫻ 105 and 1.673⫻ 104 t, respec- main reason for this is that the Jinsha River watershed has the
tively. The estimated errors of the NPS loads at the Yichang sta- largest area among the five watersheds. The Jialing River water-
tion were less than 10% compared to measured values from the shed is also a significant contributor in NPS pollution load, whose
Changjiang Water Resources Committee in 2000. TN and TP loads account for 24.0 and 26.3% of those of the
upper reach of the Yangtze River Basin, respectively, because soil
Spatial Analysis of TN and TP Load and water loss are very serious problems in those areas. Soil
The TN and TP loads for each district and watershed in the upper erosion, as well as NPS pollutant loss will occur more readily
reach of the Yangtze River Basin are compared relative to each when it rains.
other in Fig. 5. The SC province was found to be the most im-
portant contributor among all districts, with TN and TP loads 51.8 Spatial Analysis of TN and TP Areal Loads
and 52.7% higher than the other provinces in the study area, From the NPS pollution loads and areas of each district and wa-
respectively. There were two reasons for explaining this phenom- tershed, intensity histograms of TN and TP loads were compared
enon. One is that the SC province is larger in area than that of for the various districts and watersheds in the upper reach of the
other districts; moreover, the SC province has a large rural popu- Yangtze River Basin 共Fig. 6兲. Among the various districts, the CQ
lation and extensive poultry breeding, which exports large municipality had the highest areal loads of TN and TP, which
amounts of TN and TP. were 3.105 and 0.158 t / km2, respectively. While the areal loads
Among the five watersheds, TN and TP loads in the Jinsha of TN and TP of Tibet, which were 0.956 and 0.026 t / km2, re-
River watershed are relatively large, which account for 32.5 and spectively, were the lowest among the various districts. Regarding
25.1% of the TN and TP of the research area, respectively. The the watersheds, the areal loads of TN and TP in the Jialing River
0.600 0.600
TN TP
0.400 0.400
Scale
Scale
0.200 0.200
0.000 0.000
CQ GS GZ HB QH SX SC XZ YN CQ GS GZ HB QH SX SC XZ YN
0.400
0.400 TP
TN
Scale
Scale
0.200 0.200
0.000 0.000
JS MT JL UR WU JS MT JL UR WU
Fig. 5. Scale histogram of NPS pollution loads in the upper reach of the Yangtze River Basin
t/km2
t/km2
2.000 0.100
1.000 0.050
0.000 0.000
CQ GS GZ HB QH SX SC XZ YN CQ GS GZ HB QH SX SC XZ YN
TN TP
0.200
4.000
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Tokyo Univ Seisan Gijutsu on 05/15/15. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
0.150
t/km2
3.000
t/km2
2.000 0.100
1.000 0.050
0.000 0.000
JS MT JL UR WU JS MT JL UR WU
Fig. 6. Intensity histogram of NPS loads in the upper reach of the Yangtze River Basin 共2000兲
and the upper region of the main stream watershed, were high at Acknowledgments
2.932, 0.138, 2.822, and 0.144 t / km2, respectively. While those
of the Jinsha River watershed were the lowest about 1.331 and This project was granted financial support from the major
0.044 t / km2, respectively. state basic research program of China 共973兲 共Grant No.
Currently, the dominant land use type in the CQ municipality 2003CB415204兲.
is cropland, which accounts for 50% of the total area. The key
land use types in Tibet are grassland and woodland, which ac-
count for more than 90% of the total area. It can be concluded
that human activities are the key factor inducing serious NPS References
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