ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Water
Sec. Environmental Water Quality
Variation trend of nitrogen and phosphorus in Lake Caohai, Guizhou Province, China, during 2014-2024
Provisionally accepted
- 1Guizhou Academy of Forestry, Guiyang, China
- 2Guizhou University, Guizhou, China
- 3Guizhou University, Guiyang, China
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Lake Caohai, a tectonic karst wetland, has been found to be contaminated with elevated nutrient levels. Understanding the long-term dynamics of nitrogen and phosphorus in Lake Caohai is essential for improving water quality. This study examined the vertical distribution of sediment-bound total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP), along with water quality trends from 2014 to 2024. The trend of decreasing sediment-bound TN and TP with depth in Lake Caohai confirmed the anthropogenic factors. Excess sediment-bound TN in the upper layers exerts an adverse effects on the aquatic environment. Concurrent increases in waterborne NH4+, and TN over the studied period showed the progressive eutrophication in Lake Caohai. Waterborne TN and NH4+ were slightly higher during the dry period than the abundant period, whereas the lowest water transparency occurred during the abundant period. Nitrogen and phosphorus dynamics in Lake Caohai are attributed to both external nutrient inputs and internal loading from sediments. It is essential to reduce external nutrient inflows from the Caohai watershed while also mitigating internal nutrient release from lake sediments.
Keywords: Eutrophication, Human avtivities, Lake Caohai, Nitrogen, Water Quality
Received: 09 Dec 2025; Accepted: 09 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Liu, Zhang, Ran and Yang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Dan Yang
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