Understanding the relationships between land use patterns and water quality in low-order streams is useful for effective landscape planning to protect downstream water quality. A clear understanding of these relationships remains elusive due to the heterogeneity of land use patterns and scale effects. To better assess land use influences, we developed empirical models relating land use patterns to the water quality of low-order streams at different geomorphic regions across multi-scales in the Dongjiang River basin using multivariate statistical analyses. The land use pattern was quantified in terms of the composition, configuration and hydrological distance of land use types at the reach buffer, riparian corridor and catchment scales. Water was sampled under summer base flow at 56 low-order catchments, which were classified into two homogenous geomorphic groups. The results indicated that the water quality of low-order streams was most strongly affected by the configuration metrics of land use. Poorer water quality was associated with higher patch densities of cropland, orchards and grassland in the mountain catchments, whereas it was associated with a higher value for the largest patch index of urban land use in the plain catchments. The overall water quality variation was explained better by catchment scale than by riparian- or reach-scale land use, whereas the spatial scale over which land use influenced water quality also varied across specific water parameters and the geomorphic basis. Our study suggests that watershed management should adopt better landscape planning and multi-scale measures to improve water quality.
Keywords: Dongjiang River basin; Geomorphic region; Land use pattern; Low-order stream; Spatial scale; Water quality.
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