The extent of impervious cover in a watershed has been linked to the quality of an urban aquatic environment The Kyeongan watershed in South Korea was investigated to evaluate the relationship between the total impervious area (TIA) and the aquatic ecosystem of the watershed, including water quality and aquatic life using a relatively high-resolution (0.4m) image. The TIA was found to be approximately 12% of the watershed, which indicates that the quality of its environment was being adversely affected by it. For water quality, Pearson correlation analyses showed that all water quality parameters studied were found to be positively correlated with TIA atp < 0.01, except for nitrate (NO3~). In addition, the zone with a higher TIA was found to have worse water quality. Some water quality parameters, such as nitrite (NO2"), total phosphorus, and phosphate (PO4^~) were highly affected by discharges from wastewater treatment plants. Water quality data suggest that TIA could be used to predict the water quality of streams. For ecological parameters, the diatom index for organic pollution and trophic diatom index were found to be highly correlated with TIA, whereas physical habitat and benthic macroinvertebrates were pooriy correlated with TIA, However, the results indicate that the extent of impervious cover can be a useful indicator for predicting the status of specific ecosystem of streams. Water Environ. Res., 84, 635 (2012).
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