Influence of Rainfall Intensity on the Nutrient Loading from an Inflowing River in the Plain River Network of the Taihu Catchment

To reveal the law of external pollution in the plain river network of the Taihu catchment, we investigated nitrogen, phosphorus, and dissolved organic carbon daily, as well as automatic recording data for flow rate and rainfall in Dapu River from 1st March, 2017 to 28th February, 2018. Dapu River, a typical inflowing river of Lake Taihu, usually has a reciprocating flow. A reciprocating flow is a common condition in the plain river network located in the Yangtze Delta. The response flow rate in the river was relatively slow to different intensities of rainfall. Flow rate significantly increased only when the rainfall intensity reached heavy rain (>25 mm•d-1). The concentrations were statistically non-significant under different rainfall intensities, and the concentrations of total nitrogen averaged 3.00±0.58, 3.34±0.93, 3.55±1.05, and 3.37±1.14 mg•L-1 under heavy rain (>25 mm•d-1), medium rain (10 mm•d-1-25 mm•d-1), light rain (<10 mm•d-1), and no rain. The concentrations of total phosphorus averaged 0.228±0.068, 0.258±0.121, 0.219±0.083, and 0.225±0.121 mg•L-1, respectively. The concentration of dissolved organic carbon and nitrogen in the Dapu River changed little during the 3 typical rainfall processes, but the concentration of phosphorus increased significantly after heavy rain when the duration was 2 days. The concentration of total phosphorus and particulate phosphorus increased significantly after medium rain when the duration was 1 day. The concentration of phosphorus did not show an obvious change after light rain. The concentration of total nitrogen was the highest under light rain, and the concentration of total phosphorus was the highest under medium rain. The daily loadings of total nitrogen from the Dapu River to Lake Taihu were 7.64, 3.19, 3.21, and 2.62 t•d-1 under conditions of heavy rain, medium rain, light rain, and no rain, respectively. The daily loadings of total phosphorus were 0.59, 0.26, 0.22, and 0.20 t•d-1 under conditions of heavy rain, medium rain, light rain, and no rain, respectively. Although the daily loading of nutrients under heavy rain conditions was the highest, the contribution of annual nutrient loading was small during heavy rain days. The reason was that the percentage of heavy rain during the entire year was small. The total nitrogen loading in heavy rain days was 61.11 tons in the observatory year, which was only 5.6% of annual loading. The total phosphorus loading in heavy rain days was 4.72 tons, which was only 5.8% of the annual loading. These low percentages of nutrient loading under heavy rainfall are quite different from situations in mountain catchments. This research showed that the transport processes of nutrients in the plain river network was complicated and its influence on nutrient concentrations and loadings in connected rivers was slow and indirect. The amount of inflow water was an important source of external nutrient loading in the plain river network. These conclusions have reference value for estimating the external loading and deciding non-point control policy of lakes in plain river network of the Taihu catchment. © 2019, Science Press. All right reserved.