Journal
ECOHYDROLOGY & HYDROBIOLOGY
Volume 19, Issue 3, Pages 317-327Publisher
EUROPEAN REGIONAL CENTRE ECOHYDROLOGY POLISH ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecohyd.2018.08.005
Keywords
Yangtze River; Eutrophication; Three Gorges Reservoir; Water quality; Phosphorus; Nitrogen
Categories
Funding
- National Key Research and Development program in China [2017YFC0404700]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [41601537, 41771520, 51679226]
- Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences, CAS [QYZDJSSWDQC008]
- Chongqing Special Project on Science and Technology, Innovation of Social Livelihood [cstc2015shmszx20011]
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Reservoirs are essential for the wellbeing of human societies, but can also be subject to negative ecological impacts. The Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) in the upper Yangtze River is remarkable for its size and engineering; however, its effects on water quality are poorly understood. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to describe long-term (1992-2016) monitoring. It showed that the chemical oxygen demand (COD, via the potassium permanganate index) and total phosphorus (TP) have decreased 40.9% +/- 9.9% and 22.2% +/- 9.7% respectively in the TGR mainstream between impoundment in June 2003 and 2016, while total nitrogen (TN) and ammonium (NH4-N) have increased 1.3% +/- 2.4% and 8.2% +/- 2.6%. In addition, phytoplankton biomass has increased by a factor of 2.7 (1.1-4.8) over pre-impoundment levels in the mainstream, and tributary algal blooms have increased in frequency since 2004. The reductions in COD and TP were caused primarily by decreases in water flow speed, which lead to sediment settlement. The anti-seasonal operation pattern and water volume increased TGR may also increases the dilution capacity. TN and ammonium are less affected by sediment deposition and have increased slightly under intensified human activities. Decreased water flow speeds and nutrient enrichment have promoted increases in algal biomass, leading to blooms in tributary backwater zones. In situ experiments indicate that phytoplankton growth in the TGR is phosphorus limited during all seasons. Therefore, controlling phosphorus will reduce the short-term eutrophication potential in the reservoir. However, concurrent control of nitrogen and phosphorus inputs are necessary in the long term. (C) 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of European Regional Centre for Ecohydrology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
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