Multi-scale evaluation of river health in Liao River Basin, China

Abstract

Previous studies on river health evaluation mainly focused on characterizations at a river-corridor scale and ignored the complex interactions between the river ecosystem and other components of the river basin. Based on the consideration of the interactions among rivers, associated river basin and habitats, an assessment framework with multi-scale indicators was developed. An index system divided among these three scales to characterize the health of river ecosystems in China’s Liao River Basin was established. Set pair analysis was applied to integrate the multi-scale indicators and determine the health classes. The evaluation results indicated that the rivers in the western and eastern zones of the Liao River were classified as sick, and rivers in the main stream of the Liao and Huntai rivers were classified as unhealthy. An excessive level of disturbances, such as large pollution loads and dense construction of water conservation projects within the river basin, were the main causes of the river health deterioration.

Keywords

multi-scale characterization / river health evaluation / Liao River Basin / set pair analysis

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 50979006 and 50939001) and National Water Pollution Control Technology Major Projects (Grant No. 2008ZX07526-001 and 2008ZX07209-009).

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg