Urbanization in China changes the composition and main sources of wet inorganic nitrogen deposition

Nowadays, nitrogen (N) deposition has become a growing global concern due to urbanization activities increasing the large amount of reactive N in the atmosphere. However, it remains unclear whether urbanization affects the composition and main sources of N deposition in rapidly urbanizing areas such as in China. One-year measurement of wet inorganic N deposition was conducted using ion-exchange resin (IER) columns in the range of 260 km from urban to rural areas in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region, south China. An increasing pattern of wet inorganic deposition along the urbanization gradient was observed and it increased in the order: rural (15.26±0.20 kg N ha⁻¹ year ⁻¹) <suburban/rural (21.45±3.73 kg N ha⁻¹ year ⁻¹)<urban (31.16±0.44 kg N ha⁻¹ year ⁻¹)