Seasonal export of phosphorus from a lowland catchment: upper River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, England

The export of phosphorus from a lowland catchment, the River Cherwell in southern England, was measured over a period of 1 year. The results describe total phosphorus concentrations in the water and river discharge at 4-day intervals. These were used to estimate the load of total phosphorus exported from the catchment. These annual loads were compared with exports estimated from sewage inputs and diffuse inputs calculated from land-coverage data, with assigned phosphorus export coefficients for particular land uses. The method was further developed to examine seasonal changes in phosphorus exports by predicting monthly losses using annual export coefficients normalised with respect to the relative hydraulic runoff for a particular month. The results show a strong seasonal dependence of total exports, with retention of phosphorus in the river system in the spring to early autumn and release of stored material during the winter. This pattern remained true, even with 50% increase in the main land-cover export and a similar increase in treated sewage exports.