Hanjiang River is the main water source and influence area of the Middle Route of the South to North Water Transfer Project. In recent years, the water quality and ecological environment in the middle and lower reaches of the Hanjiang River has become seriously degraded and water blooms occur frequently. Scientific identification of the temporal and spatial variations in water environment quality (and the main driving factors) has become an important management requirement for optimizing the upstream water transfer project. The temporal and spatial variations and influencing factors of water quality in the Hanjiang River basin were systematically analyzed, based on multi-source data and using the Daniel trend test, Mann Kendall test, K-means cluster analysis, dissimilarity analysis, and redundancy analysis. Results showed that: ① in recent years, the main stream of the Hanjiang River had generally good water quality, which was generally classified as class Ⅱ of GB 3838-2002, while the water quality of some sections in the middle and lower reaches was classified as class Ⅲ. However, the total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) load was relatively high, with 10 stations in the Hanjiang River basin showing averaged concentrations of 0.028-0.263 mg·L-1 and 0.630-1.852 mg·L-1, respectively, during 2014-2018. ② From 2004 to 2018, TP and TN at Zongguan station did not show significant variation, and other water quality indexes did not exhibit any regular patterns. The concentrations of TN, NH4+-N, and BOD5 in the dry season were higher than those in the wet season. In the wet season. the permanganate index showed different variation patterns, while TP concentration did not decrease significantly. ③ Different sections showed obvious differences in the variation of water quality indexes. However, the ten stations can be clustered into three categories: the upstream stations showed the best water quality, followed by the middle reaches, and the downstream stations showed the worst. The water quality at Xiaohe station improved significantly over the study period, which may be related to protection measures implemented in recent years, such as source control, emission reduction, and removal of aquaculture. ④ Water discharge and temperature were important factors affecting the water quality of the three regions in Hanjiang River. According to redundancy analysis, the contribution of discharge to water quality in the upstream and downstream areas was much larger, while the contribution of water temperature was greatest in the middle reaches of the river.
Keywords: Hanjiang River; influencing factors; redundancy analysis (RDA); temporal and spatial variations; water quality.