Exploring Relationship between Landscape Pattern and Water Quality in the Jiulong River Basin, Southeast China

Geospatial technique, statistical analysis and in-situ sampling were coupled to explore the relationship between landscape patterns measured at both landscape and class level influence water quality in the 21 headwater sub-watershed within the Jiulong River watershed, Southeast China. The results show that water quality parameters selected are closely associated with both composition of land use types and spatial configurations of built-up land, woodland, cropland and orchard. For built-up and orchard land, high patches density, connectivity and aggregation are significantly associated with water quality degradation. Comparatively, water quality is likely better if woodland patches are unfragmented. For cropland, the concentration for most of the water quality parameters decreases with occurrence of patches highly aggregated and connected, while NO3-N concentration increases with the increment of patches density.