Preliminary Experimental Study on Effectiveness of Vegetative Filter Strip to Pollutants in Surface Runoff (Report‪)‬

1. Introduction Constructing vegetative filter strips (VFS) between non-point pollution sources and receiving water bodies are one of recommended approaches for maintaining water quality [1]. A number of studies and applications on VFS have been conducted in the regions of USA and Europe, which have demonstrated the VFS can trap sediments, nutrients and other contaminants transported in runoff water [2-9]. Nonetheless, the effectiveness of these filter strip systems is often closely related to local climate characteristics, soils, topography and vegetation, etc. Very few studies have investigated the effectiveness of VFS in China [10-13]. Furthermore, it receives much concern as how the non-point pollutants can be effectively controlled in Chinese northwest because of the serious soil erosion. Therefore the objective of this study is to evaluate, under various conditions characterizing the serious soil erosion region in Chinese northwest, the efficiency of VFS with different vegetation patterns on pollutants in surface runoff, and to analyze the influencing factors such as vegetation patterns, initial soil water content, inflow rate, inflow pollutant concentration as well as the length of strip, and so as to investigate the practical use of VFS as a mitigation measure for non-point source pollution in Chinese northwest.