Relationship between landscape pattern and water quality in North Jiangsu plain river network region, China

This paper took Yancheng region as the study area to explore the relationship between landscape pattern and water quality. Land use types were obtained from the classification of the TM images, 2006. Landscape patterns characterized by land use pattern and five selected landscape metrics were extracted from buffer zones, ranging from 200 to 1500m, and used in correlation analysis against various water quality parameters at 29 water quality monitoring stations. The results indicated that: (1)River water quality is closely associated with both the proportions of land use and landscape pattern. Water quality is more likely to be degraded when there is high percentage of built-up area, demonstrating that the percentage of built-up area was the key factor affecting the river water quality. (2)The relationship between landscape pattern and water quality also obey the rule of scale-dependent, and the explanatory power is enhanced with the increase of scale.