Lanlan Guo^{1, 2}, Yi Chen¹, Zhao Zhang¹, Takehiko Fukushima³

¹ State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;

² Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disaster, MOE, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;

³ Graduate School of Life and Environmental Science, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 305-8572, Japan.

 

Abstract: Nitrogen and phosphorus are considered the most important limiting elements in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. However, very few studies have focused on which is from forested streams, a bridge between these two systems. To fill this gap, we examined the concentrations of dissolved N and P in storm waters from forested watersheds of five regions in Japan, to characterize nutrient limitation and its potential controlling factors. First, dissolved N and P concentrations and the N: P ratio on forested streams were higher during storm events relative to baseflow conditions. Second, significantly higher dissolved inorganic N concentrations were found in storm waters from evergreen coniferous forest streams than those from deciduous broadleaf forest streams in Aichi, Kochi, Mie, Nagano, and with the exception of Tokyo. Finally, almost all the N: P ratios in the storm water were generally higher than 34, implying that the storm water should be P-limited, especially for Tokyo.