Source apportionment of agricultural non-point source pollution in county-level regions with high urbanization rates under water resources management policy orientation
Non-point source pollution (NPSP) stands as one of the primary contributors to water environment deterioration. Over the past decade, a series of water quality management policies implemented by Chinese governmental authorities have significantly contributed to the amelioration of aquatic ecosystems...
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| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2025-09-01
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| Series: | Ecological Indicators |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X25009252 |
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| author | Bin Yan Yuyuan Li Zhenwei Gao Yuhe Fang Yongqi Zhu Zihao Song |
| author_facet | Bin Yan Yuyuan Li Zhenwei Gao Yuhe Fang Yongqi Zhu Zihao Song |
| author_sort | Bin Yan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Non-point source pollution (NPSP) stands as one of the primary contributors to water environment deterioration. Over the past decade, a series of water quality management policies implemented by Chinese governmental authorities have significantly contributed to the amelioration of aquatic ecosystems. While county-level regions serve as critical domains for both NPSP occurrence and the primary implementation tier for environmental policies, demonstrating high research significance, China’s agricultural NPSP studies at this spatial scale suffer from a scarcity of long-term sequential research data. To elucidate the impacts of multiple influencing factors on agricultural NPSP, this study employed an inventory analysis method based on regional coefficients derived from China’s Second National Pollution Census. Pollutant discharge loads and discharge intensity were calculated for counties/districts within Shenyang City. Subsequently, source apportionment of agricultural NPSP was performed through standardized pollution load intensity analysis combined with redundancy analysis. The results demonstrate a predominant downward trajectory in the progressive mitigation of detrimental impacts on aquatic environments caused by all counties and districts in Shenyang’s pollutants during the 2014–2022 monitoring period. Mechanistic analysis reveals: The fundamental driver for aquatic environmental improvement in 2016 stemmed from the scale reduction in livestock farming under the Shenyang City Delineation Plan for Livestock Prohibited Zones. In 2020, the agricultural NPSP abatement primarily originated from the substantial rural population decrease during urbanization advancement, coupled with enhanced utilization rate of livestock manure driven by integrated crop-livestock agro ecological systems. RDA results demonstrated that each canonical axis cumulatively explained over 87 % of the variance in pollutant-environmental factor relationships. The Monte Carlo permutation test confirmed statistical significance (p < 0.05), indicating that the first two canonical axes significantly captured the correlations between total pollutant concentrations and environmental variables. Furthermore, this study provides an in-depth analysis of how urbanization processes and water quality management policies interactively influence NPSP dynamics. Furthermore, this study conducts an in-depth analysis of the impacts of urbanization processes and water resources management policies on NPSP, identifies blind spots in the agricultural NPSP accounting system, and provides references for subsequent agricultural NPSP governance efforts. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-83c411f5e2c04aa4a34115c668e85508 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1470-160X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-09-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ecological Indicators |
| spelling | doaj-art-83c411f5e2c04aa4a34115c668e855082025-08-20T05:04:52ZengElsevierEcological Indicators1470-160X2025-09-0117811399510.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113995Source apportionment of agricultural non-point source pollution in county-level regions with high urbanization rates under water resources management policy orientationBin Yan0Yuyuan Li1Zhenwei Gao2Yuhe Fang3Yongqi Zhu4Zihao Song5Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, ChinaShenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, ChinaCorresponding author.; Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, ChinaShenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, ChinaShenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, ChinaShenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang 110866, ChinaNon-point source pollution (NPSP) stands as one of the primary contributors to water environment deterioration. Over the past decade, a series of water quality management policies implemented by Chinese governmental authorities have significantly contributed to the amelioration of aquatic ecosystems. While county-level regions serve as critical domains for both NPSP occurrence and the primary implementation tier for environmental policies, demonstrating high research significance, China’s agricultural NPSP studies at this spatial scale suffer from a scarcity of long-term sequential research data. To elucidate the impacts of multiple influencing factors on agricultural NPSP, this study employed an inventory analysis method based on regional coefficients derived from China’s Second National Pollution Census. Pollutant discharge loads and discharge intensity were calculated for counties/districts within Shenyang City. Subsequently, source apportionment of agricultural NPSP was performed through standardized pollution load intensity analysis combined with redundancy analysis. The results demonstrate a predominant downward trajectory in the progressive mitigation of detrimental impacts on aquatic environments caused by all counties and districts in Shenyang’s pollutants during the 2014–2022 monitoring period. Mechanistic analysis reveals: The fundamental driver for aquatic environmental improvement in 2016 stemmed from the scale reduction in livestock farming under the Shenyang City Delineation Plan for Livestock Prohibited Zones. In 2020, the agricultural NPSP abatement primarily originated from the substantial rural population decrease during urbanization advancement, coupled with enhanced utilization rate of livestock manure driven by integrated crop-livestock agro ecological systems. RDA results demonstrated that each canonical axis cumulatively explained over 87 % of the variance in pollutant-environmental factor relationships. The Monte Carlo permutation test confirmed statistical significance (p < 0.05), indicating that the first two canonical axes significantly captured the correlations between total pollutant concentrations and environmental variables. Furthermore, this study provides an in-depth analysis of how urbanization processes and water quality management policies interactively influence NPSP dynamics. Furthermore, this study conducts an in-depth analysis of the impacts of urbanization processes and water resources management policies on NPSP, identifies blind spots in the agricultural NPSP accounting system, and provides references for subsequent agricultural NPSP governance efforts.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X25009252NPSP source apportionmentCounty-level regionsHigh urbanization rateWater resources management policiesInventory analysisRedundancy analysis |
| spellingShingle | Bin Yan Yuyuan Li Zhenwei Gao Yuhe Fang Yongqi Zhu Zihao Song Source apportionment of agricultural non-point source pollution in county-level regions with high urbanization rates under water resources management policy orientation Ecological Indicators NPSP source apportionment County-level regions High urbanization rate Water resources management policies Inventory analysis Redundancy analysis |
| title | Source apportionment of agricultural non-point source pollution in county-level regions with high urbanization rates under water resources management policy orientation |
| title_full | Source apportionment of agricultural non-point source pollution in county-level regions with high urbanization rates under water resources management policy orientation |
| title_fullStr | Source apportionment of agricultural non-point source pollution in county-level regions with high urbanization rates under water resources management policy orientation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Source apportionment of agricultural non-point source pollution in county-level regions with high urbanization rates under water resources management policy orientation |
| title_short | Source apportionment of agricultural non-point source pollution in county-level regions with high urbanization rates under water resources management policy orientation |
| title_sort | source apportionment of agricultural non point source pollution in county level regions with high urbanization rates under water resources management policy orientation |
| topic | NPSP source apportionment County-level regions High urbanization rate Water resources management policies Inventory analysis Redundancy analysis |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X25009252 |
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