Land cover change and nitrate in the Mississippi River Basin between 2002-2007.

摘要

The completeness of United States Census of Agriculture and US Census data lends itself to watershed study of sources of nutrient pollution in the Mississippi River Basin. Land cover change is associated with nitrate pollution and Gulf of Mexico hypoxia, yet controversy remains regarding which in particular are the most important impacts to water quality. United States census data were areally interpolated to the watershed level to accomplish this study at two different scales. The first matches the Hypoxia Working Group's water quality stations in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya basin (MARB), and the second to the Upper Mississippi Environmental Science Center's (UMESC) work on smaller streams. Multiple linear regression analyses were undertaken to test the impact on hypoxia causing nitrogen from land use in these basins over a change period from 2002-2007.