Issue 7, 2014

Recent trends in water quality in an agricultural catchment in Eastern Scotland: elucidating the roles of hydrology and land use

Abstract

Across the EU, programmes of measures have been introduced as part of river basin management planning as a means of tackling problems of diffuse pollution from agriculture. Evidence is required to demonstrate the effectiveness of these measures and with this overarching objective, monitoring of an agricultural catchment in Eastern Scotland was initiated in 2007. As a precursor to evaluating the effect of new management measures it is essential to understand how other factors, including hydrology and land use changes, could have influenced water quality. This study undertook an analysis of the trends in concentrations and loads of nitrate, soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), suspended solids (SS) and turbidity measured at six points in the catchment over a six year period. The results identified both differing trends between determinands and differing trends occurring over varying spatial scales. The only direct relationships between land use and water quality that could be identified based on annual data was a positive link between arable cropping and nitrate concentrations. At the sub-catchment scale some temporal changes in land use and management explained short-term trends in nitrate but not in SRP. Lags in the system were identified due to soil adsorption, in-stream/loch processing and groundwater transport making the identification of cause and effect problematic. The results have implications for the demonstration of effectiveness of measures over the shorter term and the timescales of recovery from diffuse pollution. Longer term monitoring at small scales will be important in this regard.

Graphical abstract: Recent trends in water quality in an agricultural catchment in Eastern Scotland: elucidating the roles of hydrology and land use

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 दिसम्बर 2013
Accepted
26 मार्च 2014
First published
26 मार्च 2014

Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2014,16, 1659-1675

Recent trends in water quality in an agricultural catchment in Eastern Scotland: elucidating the roles of hydrology and land use

S. M. Dunn, J. Sample, J. Potts, C. Abel, Y. Cook, C. Taylor and A. J. A. Vinten, Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2014, 16, 1659 DOI: 10.1039/C3EM00698K

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements