Impervious surface impact on water quality in the process of rapid urbanization in Shenzhen, China

Urbanization has accelerated rapidly over the last century, which has caused surfaces in natural ecosystems to shift to impervious surfaces. As a result, urban watershed ecosystems show altered physical, chemical and ecological process. As an important part of watershed management, urbanization has become one of the key issues involved in the deterioration of water quality. Impervious surface area (ISA) has been recognized as a key indicator of the effects of non-point runoff and water quality within a particular watershed. Numerous case studies have been conducted to investigate the relationship between urbanization and water quality in different study areas. However, there is still a lack of understanding regarding quantitative analysis of the threshold between urbanization and water quality indicators. This study was conducted to improve the understanding of how to quantify a threshold between urbanization and water quality, taking the rapid urbanization zone of Shenzhen, China as a case study. To accomplish this, ISA was extracted from the Landsat (TM) image using a linear spectral mixture method to quantify the urbanization. The relationship between water quality indicators and ISA was then analyzed by nonlinear regression, and the threshold between ISA and the chemical indicators of water quality was investigated using the statistical segment approach method. The results indicate that the water quality indicators and ISA are significantly correlated, and that, with the exception of Zn, Pb, and CN, the water quality indicators had R (2) values greater than 0.45. Furthermore, with the exception of Zn, F-, Pb and oils, water quality indicators were found to have an ISA threshold of 36.9-52.9 %, indicating that it is important to control the ISA below 36.9 % in urbanization watersheds to enable effective urban watershed management.