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Improvement in water pollution control alters nutrient stoichiometry of Guanting Reservoir near Beijing, North China

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Abstract

Significant improvement in wastewater treatment is the most effective way for eutrophication control, especially in semiarid regions. However, its effect on the nutrient status and stoichiometry of the receiving water body has remained poorly considered and understood at broad temporal scales. Taking Guanting Reservoir (GR) in Hebei-Beijing (P. R. China) as an example, we present a study that links a continuous monitoring dataset for GR with corresponding estimates of human-induced nutrient discharges in its watershed from the year 2006 to 2019. We find that current GR belongs to strict P limitation and the faster decrease of TP than TN concentrations and continuous increase of TN/TP mass ratios in GR are attributed to the water restoration investment-induced declining of nutrient loadings. The improved municipal wastewater treatment capacity is mainly responsible for these significant changes, due to the higher removal efficiency of TP than TN in municipal wastewater. Given the potential ecological impact on aquatic biodiversity as well as ecosystem function of changes in TN/TP ratios and higher retention rate of TP (97.4%) compared with TN (93.1%) in GR, our findings highlight that future strategy for water pollution control should not only concentrate on more nutrient reduction efficiencies but attach importance to their stoichiometric balance to reduce the potential risk of phytoplankton blooms and toxin production during the water quality recovery of lakes or reservoirs.

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Notes

  1. The average exchange rate in 2021 for 1 CNY is 0.155 USD.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 42207548], the Key Laboratory of Ecological Impacts of Hydraulic-Projects and Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystem of Ministry of Water Resources [grant number KL-MWR-202101], and the National Science and Technology Major Project-Water Pollution Control and Treatment, China [grant number 2018ZX07111002].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Ecological Impacts of Hydraulic-Projects and Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystem of Ministry of Water Resources, Institute ofHydroecology, Ministry of Water Resources and Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430079, People’s Republic of China

    Dan Dai, Xianfu Zhao & Jun Hu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, People’s Republic of China

    Guoxian Huang & Kun Lei

  3. Technical Centre for Soil, Agriculture and Rural Ecology and Environment, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Beijing, 100012, People’s Republic of China

    Wenqian Cai

  4. School of Earth System Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Qingqing Sun

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  1. Dan Dai
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  2. Guoxian Huang
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  3. Kun Lei
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  4. Wenqian Cai
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  7. Jun Hu
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Contributions

Dan Dai: writing, methodology, software, formal analysis, investigation, writing—original draft. Guoxian Huang: review and editing, data curation, investigation. Kun Lei: investigation, review, and editing. Wenqian Cai: writing, reviewing, and editing. Xianfu Zhao: review and editing. Qingqing Sun, review and editing. Jun Hu: review and editing.

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Correspondence to Dan Dai.

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Dai, D., Huang, G., Lei, K. et al. Improvement in water pollution control alters nutrient stoichiometry of Guanting Reservoir near Beijing, North China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 45924–45935 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-25558-9

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