Abstract
Effective analytical tools, such as geographical information systems (GIS) and multivariate analysis, help to deal with spatial data and complex interactions in watershed management. To investigate the impact of land-use on chemical water quality in the Mongolian Kharaa River Basin, the whole catchment and sub-catchments in relation to each sampling point were delineated. Chemical water quality over three seasons was assessed with GIS and RDA in a modeling approach with forward selection of variables and cluster analysis. The most powerful predictors of river water quality were altitude, settlements, forest, cropland, and distance to spring. In particular, this was true when instead of full sub-basins riparian buffer zones (max. 3 km) were considered. From a management perspective, this implies that the protection of riparian zones should be a priority in the Kharaa basin and similar river basins in Mongolia and Central Asia. Because of its positive effects on water quality, forest protection should be closely coupled with river basin management.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allan, J.D. 2004. Landscapes and riverscapes: The influence of land use on stream ecosystems. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 35: 257–284. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.35.120202.110122.
Avlyush, S., M. Pfeiffer, D. Karthe, and D. Borchardt. 2018. Integrated water resource management, model region Mongolia - project profile. Ulaanbaatar: Admon. http://www.iwrm-momo.de/download/MoMo_project_profile_EN_2018May.pdf.
Baker, A. 2005. Land Use and Water Quality. In Encyclopedia of hydrological sciences. Chichester: Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/0470848944.hsa195.
Batbayar, G., M. Pfeiffer, W. von Tümpling, M. Kappas, and D. Karthe. 2017. Chemical water quality gradients in the Mongolian sub-catchments of the Selenga River basin. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-017-6123-z.
Bayliss, P., R.A. van Dam, and R.E. Bartolo. 2012. Quantitative ecological risk assessment of the Magela Creek Floodplain in Kakadu National Park, Australia: Comparing point source risks from the ranger uranium mine to diffuse landscape-scale risks. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal 18: 115–151. https://doi.org/10.1080/10807039.2012.632290.
Borcard, D., F. Gillet, and P. Legendre. 2018. Canonical Ordination. Numerical Ecology with R. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71404-2_6.
Brogna, D., M. Dufrêne, A. Michez, A. Latli, S. Jacobs, C. Vincke, and N. Dendoncker. 2018. Forest cover correlates with good biological water quality. Insights from a regional study (Wallonia, Belgium). Journal of Environmental Management 211: 9–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.01.017.
Carey, R.O., G.J. Hochmuth, C.J. Martinez, T.H. Boyer, M.D. Dukes, G.S. Toor, and J.L. Cisar. 2013. Evaluating nutrient impacts in urban watersheds: Challenges and research opportunities. Environmental Pollution 173: 138–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2012.10.004.
Chalov, S.R., J. Jarsjö, N.S. Kasimov, A.O. Romanchenko, J. Pietroń, J. Thorslund, and E.V. Promakhova. 2015. Spatio-temporal variation of sediment transport in the Selenga River Basin, Mongolia and Russia. Environmental Earth Sciences 73: 663–680. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-014-3106-z.
Fan, P., J. Chen, and R. John. 2016. Urbanization and environmental change during the economic transition on the Mongolian Plateau: Hohhot and Ulaanbaatar. Environmental Research 144: 96–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2015.09.020.
Futter, M.N., L. Högbom, S. Valinia, R.A. Sponseller, and H. Laudon. 2016. Conceptualizing and communicating management effects on forest water quality. Ambio 45: 188–202. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-015-0753-6.
Giri, S., and Z. Qiu. 2016. Understanding the relationship of land uses and water quality in Twenty First Century: A review. Journal of Environmental Management 173: 41–48.
Hartwig, M., M. Schäffer, P. Theuring, S. Avlyush, M. Rode, and D. Borchardt. 2016. Cause–effect–response chains linking source identification of eroded sediments, loss of aquatic ecosystem integrity and management options in a steppe river catchment (Kharaa, Mongolia). Environmental Earth Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-5092-1.
Heldt, S., J.C. Rodríguez-de-Francisco, I. Dombrowsky, C.K. Feld, and D. Karthe. 2017. Is the EU WFD suitable to support IWRM planning in non-European countries? Lessons learnt from the introduction of IWRM and River Basin Management in Mongolia. Environmental Science and Policy 75: 28–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2017.05.009.
Hofmann, J., D. Karthe, R. Ibisch, M. Schäffer, S. Avlyush, S. Heldt, and A. Kaus. 2015. Initial characterization and water quality assessment of stream landscapes in Northern Mongolia. Water (Switzerland) 7: 3166–3205. https://doi.org/10.3390/w7073166.
Hülsmann, L., T. Geyer, C. Schweitzer, J. Priess, and D. Karthe. 2015. The effect of subarctic conditions on water resources: initial results and limitations of the SWAT model applied to the Kharaa River Basin in Northern Mongolia. Environmental Earth Sciences 73: 581–592. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-014-3173-1.
Inam, E., S. Khantotong, K.W. Kim, B. Tumendemberel, S. Erdenetsetseg, and T. Puntsag. 2011. Geochemical distribution of trace element concentrations in the vicinity of Boroo gold mine, Selenge Province, Mongolia. Environmental Geochemistry and Health 33: 57–69. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-010-9347-1.
Jarsjö, J., S.R. Chalov, J. Pietroń, A.V. Alekseenko, and J. Thorslund. 2017. Patterns of soil contamination, erosion and river loading of metals in a gold mining region of northern Mongolia. Regional Environmental Change 17: 1991–2005. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1169-6.
Kändler, M., K. Blechinger, C. Seidler, V. Pavlů, M. Šanda, T. Dostál, J. Krása, T. Vitvar, et al. 2017. Impact of land use on water quality in the upper Nisa catchment in the Czech Republic and in Germany. Science of the Total Environment 586: 1316–1325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.10.221.
Karthe, D., N.S. Kasimov, S.R. Chalov, G.L. Shinkareva, M. Malsy, L. Menzel, P. Theuring, M. Hartwig, et al. 2014. Integrating multi-scale data for the assessment of water availability and quality in the Kharaa- Orkhon- Selenga river system. Geography, Environment, Sustainability 7: 65–86. https://doi.org/10.24057/2071-9388-2014-7-3-40-49.
Karthe, D., J. Hofmann, R. Ibisch, S. Heldt, K. Westphal, L. Menzel, S. Avlyush, M. Malsy, et al. 2015. Science-based IWRM implementation in a data-scarce central Asian Region: Experiences from a research and development project in the Kharaa River Basin, Mongolia. Water 7: 3486–3514. https://doi.org/10.3390/w7073486.
Karthe, D., S. Heldt, G. Rost, J. Londong, J. Ilian, J. Heppeler, J. Stäudel, G. Khurelbaatar, et al. 2016. Modular concept for municipal water management in the Kharaa River Basin, Mongolia. In Integrated water resources management: concept, research and implementation, 649–681. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25071-7_25.
Karthe, D., I. Abdullaev, B. Boldgiv, D. Borchardt, S. Chalov, J. Jarsjö, L. Li, and J.A. Nittrouer. 2017. Water in Central Asia: an integrated assessment for science-based management. Environmental Earth Sciences 76: 8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-017-6994-x.
Kasimov, N., N. Kosheleva, P. Gunin, I. Korlyakov, O. Sorokina, and I. Timofeev. 2016. State of the environment of urban and mining areas in the Selenga Transboundary River Basin (Mongolia Russia). Environmental Earth Sciences 75: 1283. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-6088-1.
Kasimov, N., D. Karthe, and S. Chalov. 2017. Environmental change in the Selenga River—Lake Baikal Basin. Regional Environmental Change 17: 1945–1949. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-017-1201-x.
Kaus, A., M. Schäffer, D. Karthe, O. Büttner, W. von Tümpling, and D. Borchardt. 2017. Regional patterns of heavy metal exposure and contamination in the fish fauna of the Kharaa River basin (Mongolia). Regional Environmental Change 17: 2023–2037. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-0969-4.
Kroll, S.A., N. Llacer, M. De La Mar´aea, C. Cano, and J. De Las Heras. 2008. The influence of land use on water quality and macroinvertebrate biotic indices in rivers within Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). Limnetica 28: 203–214.
Li, S., S. Gu, W. Liu, H. Han, and Q. Zhang. 2008. Water quality in relation to land use and land cover in the upper Han River Basin, China. Catena 75: 216–222. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2008.06.005.
Li, Y., Y. Li, S. Qureshi, M. Kappas, and K. Hubacek. 2015. On the relationship between landscape ecological patterns and water quality across gradient zones of rapid urbanization in coastal China. Ecological Modelling 318: 100–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.01.028.
Lychagin, M., S. Chalov, N. Kasimov, G. Shinkareva, J. Jarsjö, and J. Thorslund. 2017. Surface water pathways and fluxes of metals under changing environmental conditions and human interventions in the Selenga River system. Environmental Earth Sciences 76: 1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-6304-z.
Malsy, M., M. Flörke, and D. Borchardt. 2017. What drives the water quality changes in the Selenga Basin: climate change or socio-economic development? Regional Environmental Change 17: 1977–1989. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-016-1005-4.
McIntyre, N., N. Bulovic, I. Cane, and P. McKenna. 2016. A multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the impacts of mines on traditional uses of water in Northern Mongolia. Science of the Total Environment 557–558: 404–414. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.03.092.
Meisinger, J. J., W. L. Hargrove, R. L. Mikkelsen, J. R. Williams, and V. W. Benson. 2018. Effects of cover crops on groundwater quality. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.488.1093&rep=rep1&type=pdf.
Menzel, L., T. Der Beek, T. Tobias, F. Wimmer, and D. Gombo. 2008. Hydrological impact of climate and land-use change—results from the MoMo project, 13–18.
Mighanetara, K., C.B. Braungardt, J.S. Rieuwerts, and F. Azizi. 2009. Contaminant fluxes from point and diffuse sources from abandoned mines in the River Tamar catchment, UK. Journal of Geochemical Exploration 100: 116–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gexplo.2008.03.003.
Miller, J.D., J.E. Schoonover, K.W.J. Williard, and C.R. Hwang. 2011. Whole Catchment Land Cover Effects on Water Quality in the Lower Kaskaskia River Watershed. Water, Air, and Soil Pollution 221: 337–350. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-011-0794-9.
MNS. 1998. Mongolian National Standard 4568—water quality, general requirements. Authority for standard and measurement 4586:98.
Oksanen, J., F.G. Blanchet, M. Friendly, R. Kindt, P. Legendre, D. McGlinn, P.R. Minchin, R.B. O’Hara, et al. 2017. vegan: Community Ecology Package. R package. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=vegan.
Pfeiffer, M., G. Batbayar, J. Hofmann, K. Siegfried, D. Karthe, and S. Hahn-Tomer. 2015. Investigating arsenic (As) occurrence and sources in ground, surface, waste and drinking water in northern Mongolia. Environmental Earth Sciences 73: 649–662. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-013-3029-0.
Pietroń, J., J. Jarsjö, A.O. Romanchenko, and S.R. Chalov. 2015. Model analyses of the contribution of in-channel processes to sediment concentration hysteresis loops. Journal of Hydrology 527: 576–589.
Pietroń, J., S.R. Chalov, A.S. Chalova, A.V. Alekseenko, and J. Jarsjö. 2017. Extreme spatial variability in riverine sediment load inputs due to soil loss in surface mining areas of the Lake Baikal basin. CATENA 152: 82–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2017.01.008.
R Core Team. 2017. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org.
Reimann, C., T.E. Finne, Ø. Nordgulen, O.M. Sæther, A. Arnoldussen, and D. Banks. 2009. The influence of geology and land-use on inorganic stream water quality in the Oslo region, Norway. Applied Geochemistry 24: 1862–1874. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeochem.2009.06.007.
Ring, E., J. Johansson, C. Sandström, B. Bjarnadóttir, L. Finér, Z. Lībiete, E. Lode, I. Stupak, et al. 2017. Map** policies for surface water protection zones on forest land in the Nordic–Baltic region: Large differences in prescriptiveness and zone width. Ambio 46: 878–893. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-017-0924-8.
Selle, B., M. Schwientek, and G. Lischeid. 2013. Understanding processes governing water quality in catchments using principal component scores. Journal of Hydrology 486: 31–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2013.01.030.
Sliva, L., and D.D. Williams. 2001. Buffer zone versus whole catchment approaches to studying land use impact on river water quality. Water Res 35: 3462–3472.
Solbé, J.F.L.G. 1986. Effects of land use on fresh waters: agriculture, forestry, mineral exploitation, urbanisation. Horwood: Published for the Water Research Centre by E.
Thorslund, J., J. Jarsjo, S.R. Chalov, and E.V. Belozerova. 2012. Gold mining impact on riverine heavy metal transport in a sparsely monitored region: the upper Lake Baikal Basin case. Journal of Environmental Monitoring 14: 2780–2792. https://doi.org/10.1039/C2EM30643C.
Tockner, K., M. Pusch, D. Borchardt, and M.S. Lorang. 2010. Multiple stressors in coupled river-floodplain ecosystems. Freshwater Biology 55: 135–151. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2427.2009.02371.x.
Tomer, M. D., and M. R. Burkart. 2018. Long-term effects of nitrogen fertilizer use on ground water nitrate in two small watersheds. Journal of Environmental Quality 32: 2158–71. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14674538. Accessed August 2015.
Tu, J. 2011. Spatially varying relationships between land use and water quality across an urbanization gradient explored by geographically weighted regression. Applied Geography 31: 376–392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apgeog.2010.08.001.
Wellmitz, J., and M. Gluschke. 2005. Leitlinie zur Methodenvalidierung. Berlin.
Wu, Y., and J. Chen. 2013. Investigating the effects of point source and nonpoint source pollution on the water quality of the East River (Dongjiang) in South China. Ecological Indicators 32: 294–304. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ECOLIND.2013.04.002.
**e, X., S. Norra, Z. Berner, and D. Stüben. 2005. A Gis-supported multivariate statistical analysis of relationships among stream water chemistry, geology and land use in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Water, Air, and Soil Pollution 167: 39–57. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-005-0613-2.
Acknowledgements
This research was financially supported by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF grant no. 033L003A) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) (Scholarship No. A/12/97034 for GB). We express special gratitude to staff members of the Department of the Aquatic Ecosystem Analysis and Management (UFZ) for all support during the study and to the water analysis and chemometrics team of the River Ecology Department, UFZ, for sample analysis and preparation, especially PD Dr. Wolf von Tümpling for advice and guidance. Special thanks for Prof. Dr. Galbadrakh R., Dr. Saulyegul A., Dr. Enkhdol T., Batchuluun Ts., Irmuunzaya Kh., Oyundelger Kh. and Bolortuya B. for their valuable help and support for the field work. We are grateful to UFZ science photographer André Künzelmann for provision of professional photos from our Mongolian study site.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Batbayar, G., Pfeiffer, M., Kappas, M. et al. Development and application of GIS-based assessment of land-use impacts on water quality: A case study of the Kharaa River Basin. Ambio 48, 1154–1168 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-018-1123-y
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-018-1123-y