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Altering water flow pathway to enhance nutrient retention in lowland areas
Jing Zhang1, Jiacong Huang2, Yulai Ji1
1State Key Laboratory of Lake and Watershed Science for Water Security, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 211135, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
None:
Nitrogen and phosphorus (N & P) reduction has been widely adopted to fight against eutrophication in management practices. Most existing N & P reduction strategies were designed by reducing N & P use or ecological restoration with high costs. To introduce low-cost strategies for N & P reduction, this study proposed enhancing N & P retention by altering water flow pathways within the artificial watersheds (polders) via hydraulic regulation in the western region of Lake Taihu Basin, China. Soil and Water Assessment Tool, Phosphorus and Nitrogen Dynamic Model for Lowland Polders, and Hydrologic Engineering Center-River Analysis System were coupled together to quantify N & P flow and retention under diverse flow pathways. Our results revealed that streams and creeks have a larger total nitrogen and phosphorus (TN & TP) retention capacity compared to rivers. Polder hydraulic regulation reduced TN & TP into lakes by >8%, with larger retention capacities for Lakes Changdang and Gehu (15.1% and 11.2%, respectively) than those for Lake Taihu (3.3% and 2.5%). Notably, N & P retention correlated positively with polder density but negatively with polder-river distance particularly during summer rainfall events. The case study demonstrated a low-cost strategy for N & P retention via polder hydraulic regulation, offering a transferable solution to other lowland regions with artificial drainage.
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