Relationships between land use and water quality of rivers and lakes vary spatially and temporally. These variations were analyzed using spatial analysis and mathematical statistical methods for the Suzhou Creek in Shanghai. Based on the data of water quality and land use in 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020, five spatial scales (200, 500, 1 000, 2 000, and 5 000 m reach buffer) of the landscape pattern were extracted using correlation and redundancy analysis to explore the impact of land use composition and spatial pattern on water quality at different spatial and temporal scales. The results showed that: ① the water quality of Suzhou Creek has gradually improved in the past 20 years; other indicators were between Class II to Class IV in 2020 except TN, and TN was the main pollutant. ② The main land use type of the buffer zone was construction land, and the proportion of greenland and woodland showed a small growth trend. ③ The water quality was closely related to landscape pattern, showing temporal and spatial scale effects. On the time scale, indicators such as construction land, agricultural land, landscape dominance, aggregation, and diversity had significant correlations with various water quality parameters, and there was an inverse correlation in 2010 compared with that in other years for NH4+-N, TP, and TN. The landscape pattern in 2001 had the greatest explanation for water quality, with an explanation rate of 93.65%. The impact of greenland and woodland on water quality has begun to emerge in the past 10 years. ④ On the spatial scale, there were significant correlations between greenland and woodland, patch number, landscape shape index, diversity index, and water quality. There was a strong positive regulatory effect of greenland and woodland on NH4+-N, TP, and TN at the scale of 2 000 m. The patch number and landscape shape index had relatively strong regulatory effects on water quality on a larger spatial scale, whereas the Shannon diversity index had a better positive regulatory effect on water quality on a small scale. The landscape pattern within a buffer of 2 000 m had the highest interpretation degree for all factors, with an explanation rate of 68.47%. The study showed that rationally planning the proportion of greenland and woodland within the 2 000 m buffer zone and optimizing its landscape configuration is an important measure to purify the surface water quality of Suzhou Creek.
Keywords: Suzhou Creek; land use; landscape pattern; spatial scale; water quality.