Composition and Distributions of Nitrogen and Phosphorus and Assessment of Eutrophication Status in the Maowei Sea

Maowei Sea(MWS) is the largest oyster maricuture bay in Southwest China. Surface water from 12 sampling sites were collected during the dry season to study the composition and distribution of different forms of nitrogen(N) and phosphorus(P) beginning from the inner bay to the bay mouth in the MWS. An improved multi-parameter eutrophication index was developed and applied for the evaluation of the water quality in the MWS. Dissolved inorganic nitrogen(DIN), dissolved organic nitrogen(DON), and particulate nitrogen(PN) averagely accounted for 11.28%, 65.32%, and 23.39% of total N(TN) pool, dissolved inorganic phosphorus(DIP), dissolved organic phosphorus(DOP), and particulate phosphorus(PP) averagely accounted for 54.58%, 30.31%, and 15.12% of total P(TP) pool, respectively. DON and DIP were respectively the dominant forms of N and P in surface water of the MWS, during the study period. Concentration trends of DIN, DIP, DOP, PN, dissolved silicate(DSi), total organic carbon(TOC), chemical oxygen demand(COD) decreased from the inner bay to the bay mouth, suggesting that the MWS may be largely influenced by land-based inputs. Based on nutrient contents and stoichiometry, it likely that phytoplankton growth in the MWS is strongly limited by DIP during the dry season. Results from the improved eutrophication index revealed that the water quality in the MWS is in a state of moderate to poor eutrophication(average EI = 0.953). The eutrophication state decreased from the inner bay to the bay mouth. Nitrate(NO3-N), DON, DIP, DOP, and DSi showed significant positive correlations with eutrophication index(r2 = 0.52 – 0.78, P < 0.05), implying that these nutrients are among the significant factors, which could be used in evaluating the eutrophication status of the MWS.

A new technique for rapid assessment of eutrophication status of coastal waters using a support vector machine

There is an urgent need to develop efficient evaluation tools that use easily measured variables to make rapid and timely eutrophication assessments, which are important for marine health management, and to implement eutrophication monitoring programs. In this study, an approach for rapidly assessing the eutrophication status of coastal waters with three easily measured parameters(turbidity, chlorophyll a and dissolved oxygen) was developed by the grid search(GS) optimized support vector machine(SVM), with trophic index TRIX classification results as the reference. With the optimized penalty parameter C =64 and the kernel parameter γ =1, the classification accuracy rates reached 89.3% for the training data, 88.3% for the cross-validation, and 88.5% for the validation dataset. Because the developed approach only used three easy-to-measure variables, its application could facilitate the rapid assessment of the eutrophication status of coastal waters, resulting in potential cost savings in marine monitoring programs and assisting in the provision of timely advice for marine management.

AAssessment of the spatial-temporal eutrophic character in the Lake Dianchi

Water-quality deterioration and eutrophication of the Lake Dianchi have acquired more and more attention in the last few decades. In this paper, the spatial and temporal eutrophication status of the Lake Dianchi was assessed. The comprehensive trophic state index was chosen to assess the trophic status of the Lake Dianchi in the past 13 years. The result reveals that the trophic condition of Caohai is more serious than that of Waihai. Most of time Caohai was in extremely hypereutrophic state from 1988 to 2000. The trophic condition of Waihai had a worsening tendency from 1988 to 2000. Waihai was in eutrophic state before 1995, but it got in a hypereutrophic state after 1995. It was pointed out that TN and TP were the two biggest contributors of CTSIM in both Caohai and Waihai.