Responses of water quality to land use in riparian buffers: a case study of Huangpu River, China

Along with the continuous urbanization process, massive riparian buffers are developed to satisfy the increasing demands for flood protection and economic growth. Such changes of land use types and landscape patterns pose a significant challenge to the protection of the eco-system of urban rivers. This research concentrates on revealing the potential relation between the water quality of the urban river and land characteristics including land use types and landscape patterns of the riparian area and discusses if the relationship varies with spatial scales. The study area of this research are the 800 m riparian buffer of the six river water quality monitoring sections along Huangpu River. Based on the long-term monthly collection data of six monitoring points in Huangpu River, Shanghai, China, and the land use data of 100 m downstream of 1 km upstream of the monitoring point. Using landscape indicators, GIS spatial analysis, and statistical methods, the responses of land use and landscape patterns to water quality in different scales are obtained. Results show that: (1) Urban Land (UL) and Agricultural Land (AL) have an enormous negative contribution to each buffer, which is the primary non-point source pollution and influencing factor. (2) The active contribution of Wetland (WL) and Forestry Land (FL) is the most significant in the small range buffer of 0–200 m. (3) The negative effect of Industrial Land (IL) on water quality is only significant in the small buffer. (4) The effect of landscape pattern on water quality is more significant on the large spatial scale than the small scale. At the same time, this paper extends the conclusion to discuss the land use of the 800 m buffer zone of Huang River by using point to the area, proving that the research result is helpful for the political decision of urban management and provides suggestions for the land optimization of riparian buffers.