Abstract
Land use types within a watershed closely are related with the water quality characteristics of receiving water bodies. Despite of a numerous studies suggesting a strong relationship between water quality and land use, there have been increasing concerns about the geographical variation and a lack of spatial integration in that relationship, which are essential to implementing these findings into land use planning and management. In the meantime, edges mediate the material flux between adjacent systems. This mediating effect of edges is strongly related to the complexity of their shapes. Land use activities within a watershed have a direct impact on the water quality of adjacent aquatic systems, and hydrological processes carry residuals from watershed into adjacent aquatic ecosystems through the edges. Therefore, the geometry of reservoirs theoretically affects the relationship between land uses in the watershed and the quality of receiving bodies of water. In this light, this study integrates the geo-spatial dimensions of land uses in the watershed using GIS and landscape indices in order to explore the relationship between land uses and water quality. Water quality characteristics, land uses and geometry of 133 randomly sampled reservoirs were correlated, based on buffer zones and types of reservoirs. The findings showed that land uses, particularly urban land uses, significantly affect water quality characteristics including BOD, COD, TN and TP, and geometry of reservoirs reduces the concentration of pollutant and nutrients in reservoirs. One of results indicates that the relationship between land use and water quality and effects of spatial dimension may vary with types of reservoirs and pollutants. These results suggest that lakeshore areas are important, particularly for TN reduction and call for a caution to land use activities nearby shoreline areas for sustaining better water quality.
