Research papersHydrological and environmental controls of the stream nitrate concentration and flux in a small agricultural watershed

- The runoff coefficients and flashiness index exert a strong control on NO3-N flux.
- Agricultural and residential areas contribute to NO3-N concentration and flux.
- Hydrological and environmental controls of NO3-N exports have temporal heterogeneity.

Nitrate exports from diffuse sources constitute a major cause of eutrophication and episodic acidification in inland aquatic systems, and remedial action requires the identification of the influencing factors associated with these nitrate exports. This paper examines the combined effects of watershed complexity on nitrate concentration and flux in terms of the hydrological and environmental factors in heterogeneous nested subwatersheds in the Danjiangkou Reservoir Area (DRA), China. We established 15 sampling sites in the main stream and tributaries and conducted biweekly sampling in 2008-2012 to monitor the nitrate exports. The hydrological and environmental indices within the watershed were divided into subwatersheds and considered as potential influencing factors. In consideration of the high co-linearity of these influencing factors, we used partial least squares regression (PLSR) to determine the associations between the stream nitrate concentration or flux and 26 selected watershed characteristics. The number of components was unequal for the nitrate concentration and flux models. The optimal models explained 66.4%, 60.0% and 59.9% of the variability in nitrate concentration and 74.7%, 67.1% and 58.0% of the variability in nitrate flux annually, in the dry season, and in the wet season, respectively. According to the variable importance in the projection (VIP) values, the dominant first-order factors for the nitrate concentration were as follows: the areal percentages of agricultural, forest and residential areas; followed by the slope; the largest patch index (LPI); the flow path gradient (FPG); the slope gradient variance (SGV); and the splitting index (SPLIT). In addition to these factors, the runoff coefficient (RC), flashiness index (FI), and patch density (PD) affected the changes in the nitrate flux. This study illustrates the influence of hydrological and environmental factors on seasonal water quality and can serve as guidelines for better watershed modeling and effective water quality management.