Assessment of nitrogen and phosphorus loads and causal factors from different land use and soil types in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area

It is important to identify nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) from non-point sources (NPS) to protect watershed water quality. However, few studies have been conducted in a large basin to determine the sources and causal factors of N and P from multiple land use and soil types. In this study, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was applied in support of the Small-scale Watershed Extended Method (SWEM) in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region (TGRR), China. The first-order error analysis (FOEA) was used to identify the key sub-processes that affected the occurrence of NPS pollution. Based on this study, runoff from the dry land and paddy fields was enriched with nutrients, while runoff from purplish soils, paddy soils and yellow earths made up the largest amount of nutrient loads. The results showed that the contributions of individual parameters to the total uncertainty were different among land use and soil types. This study indicated that management efforts for dry land must explicitly account for conservation practices and proper land covers, while conscientious fertilization practices would result in a greater decrease of NPS yields for paddy fields. Grazing practices should be considered for the purpose of N management for yellow earths, while plant density is important to control soil erosion for purple soils.