The correlation between watershed landscape pattern and water quality depends upon the temporal and spatial scales.The study addressing different spatio-temporal scales could provide a clear basis for integrated management of land and water.Typical sub-watersheds of Nenjiang river were chosen as study sites

and the correlation between landscape pattern and river water quality was studied at the scales of sub-basin and riparian

wet and dry season

then the temporal and spatial difference in correlation was analyzed.The results of spatial scale analysis indicate that

more landscape indices correlated significantly with water quality indices at the sub-basin scale than at the riparian scale.Along with increase of spatial scale

the negative relationship of NO3—N and integrated pollution index with the forest percentage declined after initial increasing

and this negative relationship reached its strongest at the 400mbuffer.While the positive correlation of TDS

NH4—N

NO3—N

integrated pollution index with the farmland percentage also decreased after initial increasing along with increase of spatial scale

and the strongest relationship was found at 300mbuffer. Therefore

300~400m might be the critical area for river corridor management of Nenjiang river.As for temporal scale analysis

more landscape indices correlated closely with water quality indices in wet season than in dry season.In wet periods

forest

grassland and farmland landscapes were more relevant to water quality

while the construction landscape was more relevant to water quality in dry season