Relationships between land use and nutrient concentrations in streams draining a ‘wet-tropics’ catchment in northern Australia

A. Mitchell; J. Reghenzani; J. Faithful; M. Furnas; J. Brodie

doi:10.1071/MF08330

RESEARCH ARTICLE

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Relationships between land use and nutrient concentrations in streams draining a ‘wet-tropics’ catchment in northern Australia

A. Mitchell ^A ^E , J. Reghenzani ^B , J. Faithful ^A ^C , M. Furnas ^D and J. Brodie ^A

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Australian Centre for Tropical Freshwater Research, James Cook University, Townsville, Qld 4810, Australia.

^B Terrain Natural Resource Management, PO Box 1293, Ingham, Qld 4850, Australia.

^C Present address: Golder Associates, Calgary, Alberta T2P 3T1, Canada.

^D Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB No. 3, M.C., Townsville, Qld 4810, Australia.

^E Corresponding author. Email: alan.mitchell@jcu.edu.au

Marine and Freshwater Research 60(11) 1097-1108 https://doi.org/10.1071/MF08330
Submitted: 1 December 2008 Accepted: 15 September 2009 Published: 17 November 2009

Abstract

Differences in stream nutrient concentrations typically reflect upstream differences in land use. In particular, nitrate concentrations are greatly increased by losses from nitrogen (N) fertiliser applied to areas of intensive cropping. In the present study, a relationship between the area of such land use and the nitrate concentrations in the receiving streams was predicted. This relationship was tested using several data sets from the Tully basin, in the wet-tropics bioregion of north Queensland, Australia. The proportions of fertiliser-additive land use (FALU), mostly sugarcane and bananas, were correlated with the concentrations of nutrients in streams that drain these land uses. The data compared included two long-term sampling studies in the Tully River catchment and more recent, broader catchment sampling and plot-scale studies in this region. A strong relationship was shown for nitrate, but weaker relationships were observed for other N-nutrient and P-nutrient forms. Comparisons were made with contemporary and historical land-use changes in the Tully basin. The strong relationship of FALU with nitrate provides evidence that the nitrate exports from this catchment are largely derived from fertiliser use. This relationship can be used to derive nitrate run-off coefficients for fertilised land use in catchment models or to monitor changes following management to reduce fertiliser usage.

Additional keywords: fertiliser-additive land use, key pollutants, nitrate, north Queensland, Tully basin, Tully River.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank AIMS and BSES for their enduring vision to enable and continue this long sampling program, and DERM for their continuing, helpful provision of gauging data over many years. We especially thank the BSES and ACTFR staff members and Joelle Prange for collecting and processing samples, under sometimes very difficult weather conditions. We further thank AIMS staff of the Analytical Services Group and the staff of the ACTFR laboratory for analysing the very many water samples. We also thank Greg Nelson-White and Ines Lehmann (Internship) for their help in the preparation of the GIS maps. We acknowledge support from the Coastal Catchment Initiative, funded by the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, through Terrain NRM. Finally, many thanks are given to Frederieke Kroon for her helpful advice and editing suggestions.

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