Decadal changes in nutrient fluxes and environmental effects in the Jiulong River Estuary

Gaojie Wu; Wenzhi Cao; Zheng Huang; Chih-Ming Kao; Chang-Tang Chang; Pen-Chi Chiang; Feifei Wang

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.01.071

Decadal changes in nutrient fluxes and environmental effects in the Jiulong River Estuary

Mar Pollut Bull. 2017 Nov 30;124(2):871-877. doi: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.01.071. Epub 2017 Feb 4.

Authors

Gaojie Wu¹, Wenzhi Cao², Zheng Huang¹, Chih-Ming Kao³, Chang-Tang Chang⁴, Pen-Chi Chiang⁵, Feifei Wang¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Coastal Wetland Ecosystems, College of Environment and Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361102, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Coastal Wetland Ecosystems, College of Environment and Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361102, China. Electronic address: wzcao@xmu.edu.cn.
³ Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University, No. 70, Lienhai Road, Kaohsiung 80424, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Environmental Engineering, National I-Lan University, No. 1, Sheen Lung Road, I-Lan 26047, Taiwan.
⁵ Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, National Taiwan University, No. 71, Chou-Shan Road, Taipei 10673, Taiwan.

PMID: 28173958
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2017.01.071

Abstract

Estuaries are areas of both freshwater and seawater that are partially enclosed with contact to the open sea and a flow of fresh water. Although the Jiulong River Estuary has a relatively small catchment, this area was found to exhibit high nutrient fluxes. The nutrient fluxes showed obvious fluctuations for different years. The Jiulong River Estuary was predominantly P-limited, and was slowly moving towards higher DIN:DIP and DSi:DIP ratios as the nitrate concentrations increased. The high nutrient fluxes into the estuary may affect estuarine ecosystems by the alteration of DO concentrations in bottom waters, causing harm to benthic fauna due to a lack of oxygen, triggering algal blooms. Additionally, the Jiulong River Estuary was slowly moving towards lower DSi:DIN and DSi:DIP ratios along with the change of time scales, which caused nutrient limitation of phytoplankton growth as P and Si levels decreased and became more limiting.

Keywords: Eutrophication; Jiulong River Estuary; Nutrient fluxes; Nutrient limitation.

MeSH terms

China
Climate
Ecosystem
Environmental Monitoring
Estuaries
Eutrophication
Nitrates / analysis
Oceans and Seas
Phytoplankton / growth & development
Rivers / chemistry*
Seawater / chemistry*

Substances

Nitrates