Non-steady state fluctuations in water levels exacerbate long-term and seasonal degradation of water quality in river-connected lakes

The hydrological regimes and environmental changes in large riverine lakes are known for their complexity and high level of uncertainty. Scientifically uncovering the response mechanisms of water environments under complex hydrological conditions has become a challenging research objective, in the interdisciplinary of environmental science and hydrology. This study delved into the unstable response process between water level and quality of Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake as well as one of the most intense hydrological variability water bodies in China. We developed a non-steady state identification approach incorporates Seasonal and Trend decomposition using Loess (STL) and Wavelet Correlation (WTC) methods. The results showed that there were remarkable alterations in the hydrological regime and water quality at both seasonal and long-term scale of Poyang Lake over the past nine years. These alterations were accompanied by significant non-steady state characteristics, reflecting the changes in the response between water level and quality. The employment of the STL-WTC method revealed a significant nonlinear response between the long-term trends of water level and quality, in both the 4-month and 12-month frequency bands. In particular, our findings showed an intriguing shift towards in-phase behavior between water level and quality in the 12-month frequency band, rather than the anti-phase pattern observed previously. This correlation changed more significantly in seasons where the fluctuation pattern of water level varied sharply, such as summer and winter in Poyang Lake. Our study underscored the hydrological conditions and water quality of large lakes connected to rivers do not exhibit a long-term stable unidirectional response state, alterations in hydrological rhythms may induce a transition in the relationship from negative correlation towards nonlinear positive correlation between water level and water quality. Finally, this non-steady state fluctuation of water conditions can further exacerbate long-term and seasonal degradation of water quality.