Effect of land use change on lake water quality in different buffer zones

Abstract

Most previous studies are based on one year data, it is insignificant and not enough to demonstrate the correlation between land use change and water quality. Such studies have also focused on a single buffer zone, whose influence on water quality is minor compared with that of different buffer zones. According to the above-mentioned problems, we chose Meiliang Bay of Taihu Basin in China as the study area. Meiliang Bay was one of the Taihu lake divisions that faced with serious eutrophication problem, and algae blooms happened from 1987. Five buffer zones were established within 10km catchment along the lakeshore. The relationship between land use and water quality was identified with an exponential model based on 10 year data from 1995 to 2006(data of 1996, 1997 were missing). At last, we analyzed the difference among buffer zones. Finding that the effects of land use types on water quality mainly reflected in 2km and 4km buffer zones, and the effects of spatial patterns mainly reflected in 8km buffer zone. And we also found that the critical factors had a big difference in each buffer, constructed land and farm land were always the critical factors in buffer 2 and buffer 3, but it did not always happen in other buffers. Moreover, this study could also provide practical basis for the critical lake conservation region identification and recognition.