Reconstruction of anthropogenic eutrophication in the region off the Changjiang Estuary and central Yellow Sea: From decades to centuries

Anthropogenic activities are known to induce estuarine and coastal eutrophication. However, the eutrophication history over a longer time scale (e.g., over hundreds of years) is often missing, and this perspective is important for an objective assessment of recent-decades anthropogenic activities. To reconstruct eutrophication history in this region, two sediment cores were taken, core E4 in the region off the Changjiang Estuary in the coast of East China Sea, and core E2 in the central Yellow Sea. High sedimentation rate (3.8 cm/yr) of core E4 enabled us to reconstruct a detailed anthropogenic eutrophication history for the past 70 years, while the history at least back to 1855 was further revealed via core E2. Sedimentary nitrogen isotopes (δ15N) in core E4 showed a gradually depleting trend from 5‰ (1930s) to 3.8‰ in the top, which is consistent with the increasing riverine nitrogen flux over the past few decades. A negative relationship was found between total sedimentary Chla (=preserved chlorophyll a+its degradation products) and δ15N (r2=0.68), suggesting the promotion of estuarine productivity by chemical fertilizer-N. Preserved diagnostic pigments ratio (peridinin/fucoxanthin) further suggests that after 1995, the influence of dinoflagellates has been increasing compared to diatoms. At a longer time scale (i.e., core E2), sedimentary δ15N also decreased from 5.1‰ (before 1855) to 4.4‰ (at top layer). As normalized fossil cyanobacterial pigment (zeaxanthin) showed a decreasing trend from before 1855 to the top of the core, we propose that the decreasing sedimentary δ15N after 1855 was not due to assimilation of atmospheric nitrogen, but due to excess nutrients input to the central Yellow Sea, which promoted primary production. This is further proved by preserved pheopigments, which continuously increased from 41.7 nmol g OC−1 (before 1855) to 251 nmol g OC−1 (at top layer) in core E2. Besides revealing the eutrophication history, big history events were also recorded, including the 1998 flood of the Changjiang River (core E4) and the shift of the Yellow River mouth in 1855 (core E2).