Effects of land use and slope on water quality at multi-spatial scales: a case study of the Weihe River Basin

Exploring the impact of land use and slope on basin water quality can effectively contribute to the protection of the latter at the landscape level. This research concentrates on the Weihe River Basin (WRB). Water samples were collected from 40 sites within the WRB in April and October 2021. A quantitative analysis of the relationship between integrated landscape pattern (land use type, landscape configuration, slope) and basin water quality at the sub-basin, riparian zone, and river scales was conducted based on multiple linear regression analysis (MLR) and redundancy analysis (RDA). The correlation between water quality variables and land use was higher in the dry season than in the wet season. The riparian scale was the best spatial scale model to explain the relationship between land use and water quality. Agricultural and urban lands had a strong correlation with water quality, which was most affected by land use area and morphological indicators. In addition, the greater the area and aggregation of forest land and grassland, the better the water quality, while urban land presented larger areas with poorer water quality. The influence of steeper slopes on water quality was more remarkable than that of plains at the sub-basin scale, while the impact of flatter areas was greater at the riparian zone scale. The results indicated the importance of multiple time-space scales to reveal the complex relationship between land use and water quality. We suggest that watershed water quality management should focus on multi-scale landscape planning measures.