Wetland Flowpaths Mediate Nitrogen and Phosphorus Concentrations across the Upper Mississippi River Basin.

ABSTRACT: Eutrophication, harmful algal blooms, and human health impacts are critical environmental challenges resulting from excess nitrogen and phosphorus in surface waters. Yet we have limited information regarding how wetland characteristics mediate water quality across watershed scales. We developed a large, novel set of spatial variables characterizing hydrological flowpaths from wetlands to streams, that is, "wetland hydrological transport variables," to explore how wetlands statistically explain the variability in total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) concentrations across the Upper Mississippi River Basin (UMRB) in the United States. We found that wetland flowpath variables improved landscape-to-aquatic nutrient multilinear regression models (from R² = 0.89 to 0.91

SUBMITTER: Mengistu SG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10750867 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature