journal of environmental sciences 135 (2024) 703–714

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

www.elsevier.com/locate/jes

Research Article

Nutrient transport following water transfer through

the world’s largest water diversion channel

Yuanhui Cheng 1,3, Hong Zhang 1,3,∗, Wei Yin 2,∗

1 StateKey Laboratory of Environmental Aquatic Chemistry, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
2 Changjiang Water Resources Protection Institute, Wuhan 430051, China
3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 9 November 2022
Revised 30 January 2023
Accepted 30 January 2023
Available online 15 February 2023
Keywords:
Nutrient transport
Spatiotemporal patterns
The Middle Route
The South-to-North Diversion
Project
Hydro-ecological effects
Water-receiving cities
Nutrient levels in the artificial channel constructed for the Middle Route Project are signif-
icant indicators of water quality safety and aquatic ecological integrity for this large, inter-
basin scheme. However, the distribution and transport of nutrients along the channel were
poorly understood. Based on a time-series dataset as well as mass balance and material
flow analysis methods, the water and nutrient transport fluxes in the Middle Route of the
South-to-North Water Diversion Project were identified in this study. The results indicate
that the nutrient concentrations varied considerably with time, but there was no significant
difference among the 30 stations of the main channel. Seasonal temperature difference was
the major factor in the large fluctuations of water quality indicators over time. The nutri-
ent loadings varied with the water volume outputs from the main channel to the water-
receiving cities. Atmospheric deposition was an important source of nutrients in the main
channel, accounting for 9.13%, 20.6%, and 0.635% of the nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur
input from the Danjiangkou Reservoir, respectively. In 2021, a net accumulation of 988 tons
of N, 29 tons of P, and 2,540 tons of S, respectively, were present in the main channel. The
increase of these external and internal nutrient loadings would cause water quality fluc-
tuation and deterioration in some local sections of the main channel. Our study quantified
the spatial and temporal patterns of nutrient transport in the Middle Route and revealed
the ecological effects on the aquatic environment, assisting authorities on the project to
develop effective water conservation strategies.
© 2023 The Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of
Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Introduction
Inter-basin water transfers (IBWTs) are constructed to artifi-
cially address uneven geographical distribution of freshwa-
ter resources. Large water transfer projects not only bring op-
portunities for ecological and economic benefits but also con-
tribute to industrial and societal transformations in regional
areas (Zhao et al., 2017). Due to severe water scarcity in North-
ern China, over 20 major inter-basin water transfer projects

∗
Corresponding authors.
E-mails: hongzhang@rcees.ac.cn (H. Zhang), 2000yinwei@163.com (W. Yin).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jes.2023.01.029
1001-0742/© 2023 The Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V.
704 journal of environmental sciences 135 (2024) 703–714
have been developed, with a total length of over 7200 km
(Liu et al., 2013). According to Cheng et al. (2009), the ratio of
water diverted by IBWTs to total surface water resources may
increase to 10% upon the completion of the South-to-North
Water Diversion Project in 2050. A growing number of stud-
ies have focused on the environmental and ecological impacts
of IBWTs (Davies et al., 1992; Li et al., 2013; Zhuang, 2016),
although water scarcity and efficient use of water resources
have been addressed to some extent (Kattel et al., 2019;
Sun et al., 2021). IBWTs transfer a huge amount of water from
their origins to the receiving areas, which inevitably results
in changes in how ecosystems function (positive/negative) in
both the source and receiving areas. The positive changes
mainly include reduction of land subsidence (Chen et al.,
2020), improving water quality, and alleviating aquatic eco-
logical degradation in the water-receiving areas (Huang and
Pang, 2010; Yang and Liu, 2010), while the negative impacts
largely regard seawater/saltwater intrusion (Dudgeon, 1995),
biological intrusion (Ding et al., 2008; Guo et al., 2020), and
secondary soil salinization (Shao et al., 2003). In addition to
transferring water resources, IBWTs are also vehicles for ma-
terial transfer. IBWTs can be seen as a special kind of artifi-
cial ’river’ (Chen and Tian, 2021) that provide a pathway for
pollutants from both terrestrial ecosystems and atmospheric
deposition, and subsequently export them to receiving water
bodies (Zhang et al., 2022). Quantification of material fluxes
discharged from rivers to coastal seas has been widely con-
ducted (Liu et al., 2020c; Tong et al., 2017; Tong et al., 2016).
However, material transport in major IBWTs and their ecolog-
ical impacts have not been fully studied.
The biggest system of IBWTs in the world, the South-
to-North Water Diversion Project-Middle Route (SNWDP-MR),
aims to address the uneven distribution of water resources
in China. The project was launched in December 2014 and
planned to transport 9.5 km3 of water annually. From the end
of 2014 until February 2022, a total of 4.52 × 1010 m3 of water
has been transferred to northern China for the first phase of
the project, which directly benefited 79 million people (China
Ministry of Water Resources, http: //nsbd.mwr.gov.cn/). South-
ern water has become a major source of urban water in
most northern cities that receive supplies from the SNWDP
(South-to-North Water Diversion Project Management De-
partment, 2021). Issues regarding the project’s water qual-
ity safety and ecological impacts have sparked great con-
troversy and discussion in recent years (Barnett et al., 2015;
Long et al., 2020; Nong et al., 2020). Some studies have been
conducted to comprehensively evaluate the water quality sta-
tus of this project, from its water source of the Danjiangkou
Reservoir (Chen et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2017) to the main
channel (Nong et al., 2020), to investigate the spatio-temporal
dynamics of prokaryotic and micro-eukaryotic communities
along the main channel (Zhang et al., 2021b). Outbreaks of al-
gae blooms have been occurring in recent years in the main
channel, with a trend of increasing algal density from south
to north (Wang et al., 2022a). Nutrients are important for
the sustainability of ecosystems in water transfer channels.
Their contents and ratios in the waterbodies have an im-
portant influence on the trophic structure of phytoplankton
(Klausmeier et al., 2004), and their enrichment would cause
abnormal algal proliferation. Therefore, it is necessary to pay
special attentions to nutrient fluctuations to prevent effects
on the safe supply of water in the main channel. Nutrient dis-
charges flowing into the rivers can be divided into internal re-
leases and external inputs (Ji et al., 2021), such as those from
terrestrial origins (Tong et al., 2017) or atmospheric deposi-
tion (Yau et al., 2020). Nutrient discharges from point sources
and agricultural non-point sources can be effectively reduced
by interception facilities in MR (Liang et al., 2017); however,
the atmospheric deposition is characterized by a high degree
of uncertainty. Wang et al. (Wang et al., 2022b) reported that
atmospheric deposition significantly affects the water qual-
ity of the SNWDP-MR as 83.6% of the main channel carries
water through open channels. Also, there was increasing ev-
idence showed that the internal nutrient loading from sedi-
ments is an important factor in eutrophication of water bod-
ies (Tong et al., 2019; Ji et al., 2021). However, few studies have
quantified the contributions from various sources to these nu-
trient loads, including those from phosphorus, nitrogen, and
sulfur. Furthermore, the flow, transformation and elimination
of essential nutrients along the channel network have sig-
nificant implications not only for aquatic ecology within the
channel but also for ecological impacts in receiving areas.
There were continuous and integrated water quality and
water quantity datasets from 30 monitoring stations in the
Middle Route (MR) Project from 2015 to 2021. To analyze
nutrient budgets, we first incorporated water quantity data
for each diversion gate into a water balance model, which
was developed based on conceptual representations of the
physical processes of water flow aggregated over the entire
study area (Plagnes et al., 2017). It is widely used to test wa-
ter supply facilities (Gong et al., 2016), estimate groundwa-
ter recharge or groundwater levels (Hong et al., 2016), and
establish watershed-specific studies such as streamflow pre-
dictions under various morphologies and climates (Boughton,
2004). Thus, it is ideally suited for water allocation calculations
in an IBWT. Based on this, we then applied material flow anal-
ysis to quantitatively characterize the sources of nutrients in
the main channel and the transport fluxes to cities along the
route. The overall objective of this study was to provide infor-
mation and support for the assessment of the possible ecolog-
ical effects of water and nutrient transport through the Middle
Route Project.
1. Materials and methods
1.1. Study area
As an important part of the SNWDP, the MR began to de-
liver water to northern cities in China on December 12, 2014
(China Ministry of Water Resources, http://nsbd.mwr.gov.cn/).
The total length of the water delivery route is 1,432 km (in-
cluding 156 km of the Tianjin branch line), which crosses four
provinces/municipalities and spans from Henan Province in
the south to Hebei Province, and to Beijing and Tianjin in the
north (Fig. 1). Due to geographical differences, water does not
naturally flow from the south to the north. As a result, the
Danjiangkou reservoir has been raised and the artificial open
channel (partial pipeline) is used for water conveyance. The
open channel of the MR is 1,197 km, accounting for 84% of the
 journal of environmental sciences 135 (2024) 703–714 705

Fig. 1 – Distribution of 30 water quality monitoring sections in the SNWDP-MR. The detailed station information is provided
in Appendix A Table S1. The red line in the figure shows the boundary between temperate continental climate and
temperate monsoon climate, while the green line shows the boundary between temperate monsoon climate and
subtropical monsoon climate.

total length. The channel was designed with a trapezoidal sec-
tion, with a maximum opening width of more than 130 m at
the upper part, a bottom width of 10–50 m, and a water depth
of 3.5–9.5 m.
The MR spans the subtropical humid monsoon climate
zone and the temperate monsoon climate zone, with average
annual precipitation between 542.7 and 1,173.4 mm and an av-
erage annual temperature between 14.6 and 21.2 degrees Cel-
sius between 1986 and 2015 (Li et al., 2015).
1.2. Water balance model
The water balance model for the main channel was estimated
based on a mass balance method, on which the water loss rate
and the loss coefficient per unit length were calculated.
1.2.1. Water balance model
Before calculating the material transfer flux of the MR, we
needed to build a water balance model at the main channel
scale. Along the MR there are 64 controlling gates and 97 wa-
ter diversion gates (Cao et al., 2016) to achieve a smooth wa-
ter supply to the water-deficient cities along the line. As the
volume will be affected by geology, weather, temperature dif-
ferences, flow rates, and other factors, there will be a certain
amount of water lost. The annual water supply plan for the MR
is determined for a 12-month cycle. The period from Novem-
ber 1 of each year to October 31 of the next year is the annual
water transfer cycle. The water balance of the main channel
over a period of time can be expressed as (Wang et al., 2015):
Wi = Wf + Wh + Wl + Ve − Vs (1)
Where Wi (m3 ) is the total amount of water entering the
channel in the calculation period, Wf (m3 ) is the amount of wa-
ter supplied to the terminus (Beijing); Wh (m3 ) is the amount
of water distributed from the main channel to water receiv-
ing cities in the calculation period; Wl (m3 ) is the water loss of
the channel in this period; Vs (m3 ) and Ve (m3 ) are the water
volumes in the channel at the start and end of the calculation
period respectively.
1.2.2. Water loss and water loss rate
Water loss includes leakage and evaporation loss. The water
loss rate refers to the ratio of water loss to total water con-
veyance in the transfer process. The water loss rate refers to
the ratio of the amount of water lost in the process of water
conveyance to the total amount of water diversion, which is
an important indicator of water conveyance efficiency. Using
the water regime data for a defined period, the loss rate (ρ) of
the channel can be calculated:
W
ρ= l (2)
Wi
Using the water balance model, Eq. (1), to calculate Wl :
Wl = Wi − Wf − Wh − Ve + Vs (3)
706 journal of environmental sciences 135 (2024) 703–714

1.2.3. Loss coefficient per unit length
The length of the MR accounts for 1,432 km of the project,
which mainly consists of the open channel. PCCP pipes and
concealed culverts are used for water transmission in the Bei-
jing section, and box culverts are used for the Tianjin section.
The water loss in the process of water conveyance is mainly
due to evaporation and leakage, in which the leakage loss ac-
counts for the vast majority of the total loss. As the evapo-
ration and leakage loss rate for underground engineering is
very small, our analysis of water loss only focused on the open
channel. This is the section from the channel head, Taocha, to
the Beijuma river sluice, at a total length of 1,197 km. Based
on the length of the open channel, the water loss coefficient
per unit length (r) of the main channel was obtained, as were
the water discharges for each city during the study period.
1.3. Material flux model based on a Section-Segmented
Method
where ck (mg/L) represents the concentrations of TN, TP
(mg/L) and SO4 2− (mg/L) in sectional water samples; and Wi,k
(× 104 m3 /year) represents the amounts of annual overflow.
The original concentration data in a year were averaged for
each section to get the annual average. The annual overflow
calculation for each section is shown in the supplementary
material (Appendix A Text S1). Nutrients imported through
atmospheric deposition were calculated from the following
equation:
Ak = Fk × Lk × 0.13 (7)
where Fk (kg/ (km2 year)) is the atmospheric deposition flux
at section k and Lk (km) is the length of the open channel in
each city. The average receiving widths of different channel
sections range from 0.10 to 0.13 km. In this study, the most
unfavorable case value, i.e. 0.13 km, was adopted.

Material flow analysis has historically been used as an effec-

1.4. Data availability and statistical analysis
tive tool to offer a system-oriented view of the interlinked
The water quality and quantity data from 2015 to 2021 used
processes of contaminants, such as carbon, nutrients, organic
in this study were collected from the Construction and Ad-
pollutants, and trace metals (Bai et al., 2016; Chen et al., 2019;
ministration Bureau (CAB) of the Middle Route of the South-
Lin et al., 2016; Liu et al., 2020b; Liu et al., 2019). In this study,
to-North Water Division Project of China with official permis-
we apply this technique to understand how nutrients (N, P, and
sion. A total of 30 water quality monitoring stations were set
S) are transported in such a large, inter-basin water transfer
up along the main channel to collect and analyze water sam-
project. The material flow calculation for the migration of TN,
ples every month (Fig. 1). Detailed information regarding the
TP, and SO4 2− in the main channel began with nutrient import
locations and functions of each monitoring station is shown
from the inlet at the head of the channel, Taocha, and atmo-
in Appendix A Table S1. Gas emission data were also obtained
spheric deposition. The calculation continued with the diver-
from the CAB and the gas samples were collected by a static
sion of southern water to the cities along the route with regard
floatation tank. More details on the instrumental and chemi-
to nutrient transport in each section, with the final step being
cal analysis methods used for the determination of the three
the release of nutrients to the terminal cities (Beijing and Tian-
water quality indicators (TN, TP, and SO4 2− ) and N2 O are given
jin) or accumulation in the artificial channel. The sub-sections
in Appendix A Table S2.
of the main channel were divided based on the prefecture-
The deposition data for N, P, and S were collected from
level cities in Henan Province and Hebei Province, as seen in
the monitoring data obtained by the Chinese Ecosystem Re-
Appendix A Fig. S1. The analysis was established based on the
search Network (CERN) (Yu et al., 2019), the monitoring data
mass balance principle given below:
from the National Acid Deposition Monitoring Network, and
 
Sourcei,k + k = Sink j,k (4) the monitoring data collected from published papers, among
i ,k j other sources. Detailed information is given in Appendix A Ta-
ble S3.
where i and j are different sources and sinks of nutrients, re-
Differences between water quality indicators at each mon-
spectively; k is the section (from 1 to 13) of the main channel of
itoring site (means ± SD, n = 30) were assessed with one-
the MR as a temporary pool of nutrients; Sourcei,k (tons/year)
way analysis of variance (ANOVA), using Tukey’s honest sig-
is the source i of nutrients in the water column of section k;
nificance test (HSD). The significance level was set at p < 0.05.
Sink j,k (tons/year) represents the sink j of nutrients in sec-
All statistical analyses were performed by the SPSS Statistics
tion k; and k (tons/year) is defined as the uncertainty of the
25.0 for Windows (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA).
mass balance system of section k. In this work, we divided the
main channel of the MR into 13 sections/boxes, based on the
prefecture-level boundaries. Sourcei,k can be calculated as:
2. Results
  
Sourcei,k = Ik + Ak (5)
i,k k k 2.1. Water diversion through the MR and water balance
in the main channel
where Ik (tons/year) and Ak (tons/year) are the import of nutri-
ents (N, P, and S) from cross-sectional inflows and atmospheric 2.1.1. Water diversion status
deposition, respectively, into the main channel of the MR. The Up to 22 July 2022, the first phase of the MR has delivered a
material fluxes from the sectional entry are calculated as: total of 500 × 108 m3 of water to the northern region. Since
its commissioning in December 2014, the MR has provided
Ik = ck × Wi,k (6) southern water to a total of 24 large and medium cities and
 journal of environmental sciences 135 (2024) 703–714
Fig. 2 – Changes in annual water diversion from the SNWDP-MR to the four regions from 2017-2021 and the proportion of
water transferred to the receiving cities along the route in 2021.
more than 200 counties and urban areas, benefiting 85 mil-
lion people along the route. The water diversion and supply
for water-receiving cities of the MR have illustrated in Fig. 2.
The total volume of water diversion increased from 20.2 × 108
m3 in 2015 to 90.5 × 108 m3 in 2021, which is expected to
reach the near-term water transfer target (95 × 108 m3 ) soon.
The annual water receipts were increasing in these four re-
gions, but their proportions were different. Specifically, from
2015 to 2021, the proportions of southern water allocated to
Henan, Tianjin, and Beijing have decreased year by year (39.5%
to 33.7%, 17.9% to 12.8% and 38.1% to 14.8%), while Hebei ’s al-
location has increased from 4.47% to 38.8% (Fig. 2). The top
recipient city in Henan Province is Nanyang City, accounting
for 40.2% of the total water share in Henan Province, followed
by Zhengzhou City with 24.1% and the remaining cities to-
taling 35.7%. The top recipient city in Hebei Province is Shi-
jiazhuang City, followed by Baoding City, with a percentage
of 48.8% and 28.7%, respectively. Since the operation of the
SNWDP-MR, it has markedly changed the water supply and
consumption patterns in the receiving cities, as will be dis-
cussed in detail in later sections.
2.1.2. Water balance in the main channel
Based on in-situ observation data, the water balance in the
main channel of the MR was calculated at different time scales
(Appendix A Table S6). The results indicate that the water
loss from the main channel section varied greatly for differ-
ent years. The water loss was higher in 2017 and 2018, with
332.87 million and 557.89 million cubic meters, respectively.
After 2018, it decreased year by year to 150.79 million cubic
meters. At the same time, the water loss rates decreased from
6.87% in 2017 to 1.67% in 2021. Many factors may affect wa-
ter loss rates in transmission projects, mainly the operating
time of the channel, the permeability of materials, weather
conditions, the flow rate of water transmission, the length of
the channel, etc. In general, the loss of water will be greater
at the beginning of the water diversion project. After a longer
period of operation, the water body in the channel and the
707
surrounding environment will reach a relative balance, so the
water transmission loss rate will decrease and gradually sta-
bilize (Ma et al., 2016). Despite the MR’s high level of imper-
meability, leakage is still the main source of water transfer
losses. Weather conditions affect water losses mainly through
evaporation and precipitation. The higher the water transfer
flow rate, the faster the flow velocity and the relatively shorter
water flow propagation time will reduce seepage losses, thus
reducing water loss rates. When discussed on an annual ba-
sis, the length of the channel of the MR remains constant
and weather factors can be ignored, so the combination of
increased operating time and flow rate resulted in a gradual
decrease and then stabilization of water loss rates (Appendix
A Table S6). Our results are consistent with previous studies
(Feng et al., 2022), with the loss rate at the beginning of oper-
ation being around 5% and then stabilizing at around 2%.
2.2. Temporal and spatial variations of water quality
along the main channel
Both TP and SO4 2− met the requirements of China’s surface
water Class I water standards (TN is not used as a daily eval-
uation indicator), indicating that the water quality within the
main channel has remained excellent. During 2017–2021, the
average TN, TP, and SO4 2− concentrations of the 30 stations in
the midline channel showed different temporal trends. Two
significant increases in TN concentrations occurred during
2017–2021, respectively in 2017 and 2021. During the period
from 2018–2020, concentrations remained stable and fluctu-
ated in the range of 1–1.5 mg/L. Changes in TP over these five
years were dominated by intra-year fluctuations, and over-
all low and stable concentrations in the range of 0.005–0.015
mg/L. SO4 2− showed a different temporal trend to TN and
TP. Specifically, average SO4 2− concentrations decreased from
29.5 mg/L in 2017 to 24.1 mg/L in 2021.
The mean concentrations of TN, TP, and SO4 2− all showed
narrow variation ranges, and there were no obvious spatial
changes in TN, TP, and SO4 2− from the southern to northern
708 journal of environmental sciences 135 (2024) 703–714

Fig. 3 – Temporal and spatial trends of the TN (a, b), TP (c, d), and SO4 2− (e, f) concentrations in the MR. The solid lines in the
graphs represent the arithmetic mean values of the concentrations at the 30 stations (a, c, e) and the annual concentrations
during 2017–2021 (b, d, f). Error bars were plotted as bands of different colors.

Fig. 4 – Water transport fluxes (tons/year) of TN (a), TP (b), SO4 2− -S (c) in the main channel of the SNWDP-MR in 2021. Data
for 2017-2020 were shown in Appendix A Figs. S2,S3, and S4.
 journal of environmental sciences 135 (2024) 703–714
stations (one-way ANOVA, P > 0.05). The mean TP and SO4 2−
concentrations were below the threshold of the Class I stan-
dard, with maximum detected values of 0.03 mg/L and 39.9
mg/L, respectively. Notably, SO4 2− showed relatively higher
concentrations at the four northern stations, WQT, WHH, HNZ,
and TCH, located in Tianjin and Beijing, than at the south-
ern stations (Fig. 3f), which is consistent with a previous study
(Nong et al., 2020). This can be attributed to the precipitation
inputs from atmospheric pollutants (Pu et al., 2017).
2.3. Nutrient transport in the main channel of Middle
Route Project
Water-based nutrient flow analysis is essential to analyze the
nutrient budget in the main channel and is a prerequisite for
the formulation of regional nutrient management. The trans-
port flows of three nutrients, N, P, and S, with the water flow
of the MR were quantified in this study. From 2017 to 2021, the
fluxes of substances transported by water flow increased with
the amount of water transferred by the MR. At the head of
main channel, Taocha, the influent flux of TN increased from
4,561 to 11,001 tons/year, with an increased ratio of 141%; the
flux of TP increased from 28.3 to 67.9 tons/year, with an in-
crease of 140%; and SO4 2− increased from 46,430 to 73,528
tons/year, with an increase of 58%. In this study, we also found
that the MR could transport substantial amounts of nutrients
to the water-receiving cities along its route. In total, 3,647 tons
of TN, 20.1 tons of TP, and 24,412 tons of SO4 2− were dis-
charged from the main channel to Henan Province. A total
of 4,072 tons TN, 20.2 tons TP and 26,492 tons SO4 2− were
discharged from the main channel to Hebei Province (Fig. 4).
Some cities (such as Nanyang, Zhengzhou, Shijiazhuang and
Baoding) with higher discharge, are responsible for a surpris-
ingly large proportion of the annual material fluxes exported
from the MR each year. Nutrient transport for different cities
also changed from 2017 to 2021. Corresponding to water al-
location, a greater proportion of nutrients were transferred to
cities in Hebei Province, although the total amounts were gen-
erally increasing in both regions (Appendix A Figs. S2, S3, S4).
Therefore, the large-scale transfer of water from the SNWDP-
MR would inevitably affect the ecological environment of the
water-receiving region, such as through changes in nutrient
concentrations in rivers and lakes (Xiao et al., 2021), which will
be further discussed in coming sections.
Apart from being imported with the water flow from the
Danjiangkou Reservoir, nutrients in the main channel could
also enter the water column by dry and wet atmospheric de-
position. In this study, data on atmospheric deposition fluxes
close to the study area were collected (Appendix A Table S3),
from which the total amount of deposition in the open chan-
nel section of the MR was estimated (Fig. 5). The contribution
of atmospheric deposition accounted for approximately 9.13%
and 20.6% of the TN and TP fluxes of the MR. Atmospheric de-
position is one of the non-negligible sources of nutrients in
aquatic ecosystems, whether in natural or artificial rivers. Re-
search has revealed that N deposition into the tributary of the
Yangtze River accounts for 10.47% of the total N flow of tribu-
tary streams (Chen et al., 2022a). In addition, excessive nutri-
ent deposition directly into inland water would increase N and
709
P concentrations and thus deteriorate water quality, making it
a point of focus for the management of the SNWDP-MR.
A portion of the nutrients entering the main channel would
leave the water by entering the sediment or by other means af-
ter a variety of transport and transformation processes (phys-
ical, chemical, or biological). For N, gaseous N2 , NH3 , and N2 O
emissions are possible export modes. There is very little re-
search on riverine nitrogen loss estimations by determining
fluxes of N2 , and none in the MR (Xia et al., 2021). Results of
recent studies on riverine N2 fluxes of Chinese rivers and lakes
are listed in Appendix A Table S5. The measurement from
Chen et al. (2014) in the Jiulong River (7.08 μmol N/m2 /hr) was
chosen to estimate the N2 emissions in the MR due to the rel-
atively close concentrations of denitrifying substrates (NO3 -
N and NH4 -N) in these two areas. Ammonia volatilization for
the water-air interface was not addressed in this study due to
its low emission flux (10-20 μg NH3 /m2 /hr) (Chen et al., 2021).
During the wet season, the N2 O emission rate of most sites
was positive, with an average value of 0.91 ± 1.15 μmol/m2 /hr.
Therefore, it is estimated that the annual N2 and N2 O emis-
sions from the water-air interface of the main channel were
about 135 tons and 16 tons. Based on our analysis, in 2021,
1,033 tons of N, 23 tons of P, and 602 tons of S accumulated in
the channel at the Henan section and 45 tons of N released,
6 tons of P and 1,938 tons of S accumulated in the channel at
the Hebei section (Fig. 5).
3. Discussion
3.1. Temporal and spatial characteristics of water
quantity and quality
Water demands can be assessed from two perspectives: effi-
ciently tackling the increasing water availability gap for hu-
man water users and effectively meeting drinking and non-
drinking water requirements (Yang et al., 2015). Thus, the
South-to-North Water Diversion Central Project should fac-
tor in water quantity and water quality goals simultaneously,
enabling water-receiving cities to achieve sustainable water
management patterns.
The first phase of the SNWDP-MR has effectively alleviated
the water shortage in the northern part of China (Kattel et al.,
2019), and thereby strongly safeguarded the implementation
of major national strategies such as the coordinated develop-
ment of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, and the construction of the
Xiongan New Area. The project has fundamentally changed
patterns of water supply, improved the quality of urban wa-
ter and promoted the social development and urbanization
of 24 large and medium-sized cities in the water-receiving
area (Sun et al., 2022). In some major recipient cities along
the route, southern water has transformed from a supplemen-
tary source to a main source. At present, over 70% of the water
supply in the central city of Beijing is "southern water", all 14
administrative districts in Tianjin use "southern water", and
many cities in Henan and Hebei provinces use "southern wa-
ter" for 100% of their needs in main urban areas (Appendix
A Fig. S5). According to the China Water Resources Bulletin
(2003-2021) published by the Ministry of Water Resources of
the People’s Republic of China, groundwater supply in Beijing,
710 journal of environmental sciences 135 (2024) 703–714
Fig. 5 – Sources and transport of TN (a), TP (b), SO4 2− -S (c) in the main channel of the SNWDP-MR in 2021.
Tianjin, Hebei and Henan has all declined significantly in re-
cent years, requiring a shift towards the use of surface water
and other sources (Appendix A Fig. S6). These phenomena in-
dicate that groundwater over-exploitation in the northern ar-
eas has been better controlled and that the SNWDP has played
an irreplaceable role in replenishing water sources (Chen et al.,
2020; Long et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2021a). There have also
been significant changes in water use in these four areas,
mainly in the form of increased water use for domestic and
ecological purposes (Appendix A Fig. S7). The increase in eco-
logical water use in recent years has been more pronounced,
especially after the commissioning of the MR in 2014. On the
one hand, this is because the MR has replaced part of the wa-
ter used in local river canals; on the other hand, the ecolog-
ical replenishment of the MR in recent years has also made
a prominent contribution to the increase in ecological water
use.
As a sedimentary element, P would be continuously de-
posited downward during the transport process along the MR,
resulting in a spatial decrease in TP concentration. TN and
SO4 2− showed an increasing trend in some sections, which
can be attributed to the input of potential pollution sources,
especially atmospheric deposition (Liang et al., 2017; Yin et al.,
2018). On the time scale, TN showed an increasing trend, while
SO4 2− showed a decreasing trend. Differences in temperature
gradients between the northern and southern (Nong et al.,
2019), and seasonal temperature fluctuations (Qian et al., 2000;
Stow et al., 2015) may be the main influencing factor for
the seasonal changes of the above water quality parameters.
In addition, endogenous release from in-channel sediments
caused by hydraulic and/or microbial action in the vicinity of
certain hydraulic projects is likely to be a significant contribut-
ing source of nutrient concentration fluctuations (Wang et al.,
2022a; Zhang et al., 2021b). Except for TN, the water quality of
the main channel of the SNWDP-MR is generally good based
on China’s Environmental Quality Standards for Surface Water
(GB38382-2002) and, overall, meets the requirements of class
I water standards. Nong et al. (2020) used the Water Quality
Index (WQI) to evaluate seasonal and spatial water quality
changes over the period of 2016–2019, and the results showed
that the water quality status of the SNWDP-MR remained sta-
ble at an “excellent” level. The Danjiangkou Reservoir, which is
the water source for this project, exhibited similar water qual-
ity indicators to the main channel, with all of its monitoring
sections maintaining levels in agreeance with Class I-II water
quality standards (Chen et al., 2022b; Liu et al., 2017).
3.2. Sources of nutrients in the main channel
The main channel of the middle route is characterized by large
and long channel lines, various building styles, and numer-
ous intersecting buildings. As the water conveyance mode is
mainly an open channel, rainwater and atmospheric fallout
(dry and wet atmospheric deposition) will inevitably be re-
ceived by the channel. Reactive nutrients, deposited in aquatic
ecosystems via wet and dry deposition, can alter biogeo-
chemical cycling and affect nutrient levels and water quality
(Camarero and Catalan, 2012; Elser et al., 2009). Excessive at-
mospheric deposition of nitrogen and phosphorus would se-
riously affect the stability and productivity of aquatic ecosys-
tems (van Breemen, 2002). The North China Plain, where the
MR is located, is a hot area for atmospheric N deposition in
China, with an annual bulk deposition rate of about 38.33 kg
N/ha/year (Liu et al., 2020a; Yu et al., 2019). Thus, the contri-
 journal of environmental sciences 135 (2024) 703–714
bution of atmospheric deposition to nutrient loadings of the
main channel waters should be taken into account in future
studies.
The role of in-channel sediments should not be overlooked.
Due to the input from the Danjiangkou Reservoir, dry and wet
atmospheric depositions and the deposition of aquatic debris
in the main channel, abundant sedimentation has formed in
the bottom of the main channel, especially since the large
algae outbreak events in 2016 (Zhu et al., 2019; Zhu et al.,
2022). Based on the estimates of this study, TN showed de-
position in the Henan section and release in the Hebei sec-
tion, while TP and SO4 2− were deposited downwards through-
out. Unlike nitrogen, phosphorus is difficult to remove from
the water column in a gaseous form, so it would be retained
through particulate matter and biological uptake in the sed-
iment (Han et al., 2020). The deposition rates of TN, TP and
SO4 2− were 9.0%, 42.7%, and 3.5% of the exogenous input, re-
spectively (Fig. 5), indicating that the N, P, and S materials in
the sediment have not yet exceeded the upper permissible
limits within the main channel. On the other hand, such a sig-
nificant annual deposition would make the channel sediment
rich in nutrients and other pollutants. Under the influence of
factors such as hydraulic disturbance and seasonal changes,
internal loads may fluctuate much more than external nutri-
ent inputs (Tong et al., 2021). Therefore, more attention and re-
search on the internal loading of sediments in the main chan-
nel is needed in the future to develop a more effective envi-
ronmental management policy for the SNWDP-MR.
3.3. Impacts of nutrient transport on aquatic ecosystems
The main channel is a unique artificial water ecosystem,
where the nutrient transport would be distinct from, but over-
lap with, the processes of biogeochemical cycling in rivers and
lakes. Owing to excellent environmental protection measures,
it is difficult for land surface pollutants (non-point source
pollution, sewage, etc.) to enter into the transferred water
body (Wang et al., 2022a). However, because of the large wa-
ter surface area exposed to air during the long-distance diver-
sion and reservoir regulation processes, the transferred wa-
ter is likely to receive pollutants from atmospheric deposition
(Wang et al., 2022b). Inputs of N, P, and SO4 2− would enhance
nutrient availability in aquatic ecosystems, promote gross pri-
mary productivity, alter biomass production efficiencies, and
affect patterns of carbon allocation in ecosystems. Neverthe-
less, high N deposition fluxes and low P deposition fluxes in
North China have resulted in relatively high atmospheric de-
position N:P in this region (Zhu et al., 2016). Ratios of TN to TP
averaged at 198.7 in the main channel waters collected at the
30 monitoring sites included in this study (Appendix A Fig. S8),
much higher than the critical N/P ratio of 20–50 (Guildford and
Hecky, 2000) and exhibiting a marked P-limiting characteristic.
Freshwater phytoplankton assemblages are sensitive to alter-
ations in the N/P supply ratio, and variations in nutrient in-
puts will likely induce a shift in phytoplankton community
composition (Penuelas et al., 2013). With air quality improve-
ment and carbon neutral actions being implemented in China,
the reduced N deposition in regional areas caused by these
actions may change the P limitation and nutritional status of
aquatic ecosystems in unexpected ways, which deserve fur-
711
ther attention (Chen et al., 2022a). In turn, internal nutrient
loading from sediments could delay water quality improve-
ment in the channel and even external inputs may be signifi-
cantly reduced (Wang et al., 2022c).
The transfer of southern water to northern cities is not
only a process of recharging water resources for domestic use
(with high water quality requirements), but also of replenish-
ing water for agricultural and ecological purposes along the
MR. The recharging of aquatic resources in northern China has
brought about a significant recovery in groundwater levels and
increases in the water volumes of rivers and lakes (Chi et al.,
2021; Long et al., 2020; Yu et al., 2016). On this basis, the first
phase of the MR also carried out pilot groundwater recharg-
ing in some river sections, aiming to restore their basic river
functions. Through this ecological recharge measure, the wa-
ter quality of rivers and lakes in the receiving areas has been
significantly improved due to the improved water quality of
the main channel (Appendix A Table S7). For example, in four
major rivers in the central city of Tianjin, the water quality has
improved from Class III-IV before recharging to Class II-III. At
the same time, the number and diversity of regional biologi-
cal populations have been significantly restored with the ex-
panded water surface area. Overall, the material transport of
the SNWDP-MR has brought about positive ecological effects,
resulting in effective ecological and environmental restora-
tion for the cities along the route.
3.4. Uncertainties
In this study, the uncertainty of the results comes mainly from
the atmospheric deposition data and gaseous nitrogen emis-
sion data. Due to insufficient numbers of atmospheric depo-
sition monitoring sites, CERN spatially interpolated the mea-
sured data from 41 sites by kriging to generate a national spa-
tial pattern dataset of nutrient deposition. Thus, the uncertain
nutrients deposition data mainly come from the empirical re-
mote model and interpolation method for atmospheric depo-
sition posted on the CERN. Yu et al. (2019) have showed that
the regression coefficients were greater than 0.6 for both N
and P deposition flux, indicating a reliable deposition dataset.
However, these deposition data were not calibrated due to the
difficulty of obtaining long-term and accurate field deposition
data along the MR, which is the major source of uncertainty for
this study. Given the importance of atmospheric depositions
for water quality management in the MR, it should be mea-
sured from more local samples in future research. Nitrogen
loss data for rivers is also limited, which greatly contributes to
uncertainty in the balance calculation for the nitrogen trans-
port budget in the MR. Therefore, the field measurement of
nitrogen emission fluxes (including N2 and N2 O) at the water-
air interface of the MR should be a focus in future studies.
4. Conclusions
This study characterized the spatiotemporal patterns of TN,
TP and SO4 2− in the main channel of the MR and explored
their sources and fates, based on a water balance. The re-
sults demonstrated that the water supply from the MR has
steadily increased, effectively alleviating the water crisis of
712 journal of environmental sciences 135 (2024) 703–714
the northern cities. Despite slight fluctuations, water quality
in the main channel was generally good (except for TN), meet-
ing the requirements of the Class I water standard. A large
amount of nutrients flowed from the MR to the cities along
the route, but due to the excellent quality of the water in the
main channel, there are not likely to be adverse impacts on the
receiving water bodies. Atmospheric deposition is one of the
non-negligible sources of N and P in the MR aquatic ecosys-
tem. The contributions from TN and TP deposition accounted
for 9.0% and 20.6% of the input from the Danjiangkou Reser-
voir. A deeper understanding of the contributions from N, P,
and S deposition would help to better watershed manage-
ment. In addition, the accumulation and release of nutrient-
rich sediments in the main channel may be another important
source of water quality fluctuation and requires further atten-
tion in future work.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing fi-
nancial interests or personal relationships that could have ap-
peared to influence the work reported in this article.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Nos. 52270202, and 41877471), and the
special fund was from the State Key Joint Laboratory of En-
vironment Simulation and Pollution Control (Research Cen-
ter for Eco-environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sci-
ences) (No. 21Z02ESPCR).
Appendix A Supplementary data
Supplementary material associated with this article can be
found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.jes.2023.01.029.
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