Chengxin Shao is a researcher in the field of environmental science, specialising in the impact of nutrient inputs from rivers on lake eutrophication. Shao's work has been published in the MDPI Water journal.
Shao is a researcher at the State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing. He also holds affiliations with the College of Hydrology and Water Resource, Hohai University, Nanjing, and the Department of Environmental Science, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing.
In 2015, Shao co-authored a study titled "Forms of Nutrients in Rivers Flowing into Lake Chaohu: A Comparison between Urban and Rural Rivers", published in the MDPI Water journal. The study investigated the impact of nutrient inputs, specifically phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N), from rivers on lake eutrophication, using Lake Chaohu in Anhui Province, China, as a case study.
The research found that rivers flowing through urban areas had significantly higher levels of total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) compared to rivers in rural areas. The elevated levels of TP and TN in urban rivers were attributed to higher concentrations of particulate phosphorus (PP), dissolved non-reactive phosphorus (DNP), and soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) in the water, as well as higher levels of certain phosphorus fractions in the surface sediments.
The study also concluded that the higher TN levels in urban rivers resulted from increases in particulate nitrogen (PN), ammonium (NH4+), nitrate (NO3-), and nitrite (NO2-). It highlighted the role of urbanisation in contributing to eutrophication and algal blooms in Lake Chaohu, particularly in its western region.