Estimation of potential agricultural non-point source pollution for Baiyangdian Basin, China, under different environment protection policies

To prevent and control non-point source pollution, many policies have been carried out by government in China. However, the effectiveness of these policies has rarely been evaluated. In this study, the potential and spatial distribution of agricultural non-point source pollution in the Baiyangdian Basin are reported. This investigation considers multiple parameters under various policies with county as a basic unit. The results for the potential pollution from chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia nitrogen (NH(3)-N), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) are 60.89×10(4), 3.93×10(4), 87.05×10(4) and 15.10×10(4) Mg, with corresponding intensities of 190, 12, 272 and 47 kg ha(-1) for the Baiyangdian Basin in 2016. The highest pollution from COD is attributed to livestock and poultry breeding, whereas TN and TP are dominantly produced by rural domestic sources, and NH(3)-N is mostly derived from planting. Spatially, distribution of the counties producing larger non-point source pollution presented a northeast to southwest direction, consistent with the Taihang mountain alignment in the basin. The counties with high pollution intensities are mostly in the south and east of the basin. Agricultural non-point source pollution control and prevention policies contributed in pollution reduction. Compared with 2016, the total potential pollution of COD, NH(3)-N, TN and TP in 2020 decrease by 45.1%, 14.7%, 37.9% and 37.4%, respectively, whereas for an assumed future time (F2), the decreases are 59%, 51.4%, 56.2% and 55.7%, respectively. Prevention measures should focus on reducing pollution from livestock and poultry breeding as well as planting.