Nitrogen pollution and sources in an aquatic system at an agricultural coastal area of Eastern China based on a dual-isotope approach

Nitrogen (N) pollution of water courses is a major concern in most coastal watersheds in eastern China with intensive agricultural production. We use hydrogeological and dual-isotopic approaches to analyze the N concentrations, pollution, transformations, and sources of surface water and groundwater in an agricultural watershed of the Jiaozhou Bay (JZB) area. Results showed that dissolved total N (DTN) concentrations in sub-rivers (SRs) ranged from 6.0 to 25.3mg NL-1 in the dry season and 9.1-26.7mg NL-1 in the wet season, which indicated a positive relationship with the percentages of agricultural land. Meanwhile, the dominant dissolved N species in SRs changed from nitrate (NO3-, 64-100%) to dissolved organic N (DON, 52-77%) from the dry season to the wet season and the increased DON concentrations showed a positive relationship with the planted proportions of vegetable production systems. The NO3- concentrations of groundwaters ranged from 10.6 to 121.4mg NL-1, which were over the limit for drinking water by the World Health Organization. Isotopic analysis indicated that most NO3- originated from the microbiological conversion via nitrification, whereas the deletion of denitrification was insignificant in this area. The results of the stable isotope analysis in R mixing model showed the contributions of potential NO3- sources which were in order of manure fertilizers (20.6-69.0%) > soil organic matter (19.5-53.2%) > chemical fertilizers (5.5-34.3%) > atmospheric deposition (1.3-18.8%). This study suggests that the management of crop productions and reasonable manure fertilizer application should be implemented to protect the quality of aquatic systems in the JZB area.